Since 2005, taking off and landing in Florida using the NASA Space Shuttle L.F. at the Kennedy Space Center, the SpaceLand program has been operational to enable the industrial community as well as scientists and students to carry out research, development and testing activities in actual Moon-gravity and, respectively, Mars-gravity conditions without leaving the Earth atmosphere.
Such test flights are possible thanks to the particular parabolic flight profiles flown by an adapted Boeing 727-200 aircraft, as authorized by the USA Federal Aviation Administration, to fly parabolas whose curvature is smoother than the standard zero-gravity flight pattern, in order to compensate only a part of the gravitational force acting on the aircraft. Thanks to this particular flight pattern, the pilot succeeds in generating low-gravity levels on board according to specific user requirements, namely to reproduce the lower gravitational fields proper of the mean levels which are to be found on the surface of the Moon and, respectively, Mars. The so-called SpaceLand Lunar-g and/or Martian-g parabolic flight campaign allows to provide up to 35 users with a total testing time of up to 26 minutes per each Mars-gravity flight and approximately 20 minutes per each Moon-gravity flight, with the possibility to carry out three flights per day, namely in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening, with very quick payload assembly turn-over times.
In general, on board this “flying laboratory” engineered by the SpaceLand according to the different user requirements, research, analysis, design, development, testing and qualification can be carried out in a very realistic gravitational environment to verify and optimize prototypes, engineering and functional models as well as flight models of equipment and systems insofar as functions, procedures, methodologies and processes which are gravity-dependent need to be simulated in actual kinematic and dynamic conditions proper of the future lunar and mars exploration programs, both at automatic / robotic as well as at manned levels.
The Moon-g or Mars-g test-flight aircraft is fully ensured as an ordinary western airliner and is certified to board people from 11 to 93 years of age, even with physical disabilities, as demonstrated by the records set by the SpaceLand flight program at international level. The aircrat can be internally equipped with six or more automatic 3-CCD filmcameras and is going to be outfitted with analog terrains to simulate, during the moon-g respectively Mars-g flight conditions, some obstacles and slopes typical of the Moon and Mars surfaces to represent the actual kinematics and dynamics of, for instance, rovers and robotic drillers and manipulators for the future missions of the Exploration Program. This paper shall provide detailed diagrams of the on-board gravitazional levels as compared to the acceleration levels of test subjects during the Mars-gravity and Moon-gravity testing periods as attained from recent flights at the NASA Kennedy Space Center, in order to demonstrate the validity of such an alternative approach to minimize design and development costs and optimize concurrent engineering and AIV activities to ensure full success of the upcoming missions to the Moon and Mars.
Particular emphasis shall be given to the concepts of ISRU and ISSFR, namely standing forIn-Situ Resource Utilization and In-Situ Space Fabrication and Repair: such fundamental sets of activities for successful long-term operations of lunar and martian automatic or crewed basis can be immediately implemented at extremely low "cost-vs-results" ratios on low gravity parabolic flights in order to ensure realistic feasibility tests, concurrent engineering, "hand-on" development and fail-safe validation phases to turn the upcoming projects of the Exploration Program in a win-win operation to the benefit of mankind.
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