scope:

Abstract:

NASA's FAST program provides selected projects with an opportunity to experience reducedgravity conditions for 20-to-30-second intervals in an aircraft flying repeated parabolic trajectories. Proposals were solicited in January of 2009 for technologies that could benefit from testing in this space environment. Six KSC-related projects were selected to fly in August of 2009.

Projects were responsible for transporting their test equipment to the flight locations, verifying their test equipment was flightworthy, and staffing their experiments during flight. Personnel participating in the flights had to undergo training and meet certain medical criteria.

Although all the experiments were executed without any problems, subsequent discussions revealed areas of improvement that could be incorporated into future planning. These suggestions included preparing a list of flight-qualified participants that could be called in case the scheduled people could not carry out their assigned duties and having a central point of contact between each Center and HQ to prevent duplication of effort if multiple projects were coming from one NASA center.