Microgravity Testing: A Hexacopter Solution

Red Team

Testing in a microgravity or reduced-gravity environment is currently both hard and costly. For researchers to properly test their products in such an environment requires the ability to travel to Germany where a drop tower is available, pay thousands of dollars for a parabolic flight, or somehow manage their way up onto the international space center itself. Obviously these current options are not conducive to fostering more research and growth in the microgravity domain. What researcher would be encouraged to go into this field knowing that their ability to actually test their hypotheses are limited? In this paper we set out to explain our newly designed method for microgravity testing, a hexacopter solution. With the help of our mechanical and aerospace engineering and computer science teammates, we were able to design a hexacopter to show the potential of using a drone for microgravity testing; this method will be easily accessible, low-cost, and effective.

Casey Colón

Brenise Barclay

Hunter Fernandez

CpE

Mitchell Findley

CpE