{"id":13587,"date":"2017-11-09T09:30:47","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T09:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=13587"},"modified":"2017-11-09T09:30:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T09:30:47","slug":"ten-years-hypergravity-esas-centriguge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/ten-years-hypergravity-esas-centriguge\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten years of hypergravity with ESA’s centriguge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Large Diameter Centrifuge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After 14 million revolutions, ESA\u2019s Large Diameter Centrifuge is about to mark its 10th birthday. The 8 m-diameter four-arm centrifuge gives researchers access to a range of hypergravity up to 20 times Earth gravity for weeks or months at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

At its fastest, the centrifuge rotates at up to 67 revs per minute, with its six gondolas placed at different points along its arms weighing in at 130 kg, and each capable of accommodating 80 kg of payload. Multiply those combined figures by 20\u00a0g<\/i>\u00a0and it adds up to an equivalent mass of 24 tonnes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe centrifuge\u2019s surrounding walls and bulletproof glass wouldn\u2019t protect us if one of those gondolas ever spun off,\u201d explains Jack van Loon of the centrifuge team. \u201cThe glass is only there in case something like a nut or screwdriver gets left on the mechanism by accident.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we have a strict maintenance cycle, checking on vibration and looking out for anything wrong with the motors, gearing and brakes, with visual checks made before each run.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAdditionally, the centrifuge rests on a seismic block of heavy concrete, making sure its running doesn\u2019t interfere with sensitive instruments in other nearby ESA labs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Based within a scifi-style white dome, the centrifuge has been a place of pilgrimage for European researchers for the last decade, including student experimenters on regular Spin Your Thesis campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack adds: \u201cWe have some internal ESA testing \u2013 for instance to simulate static\u00a0g<\/i>\u00a0loads experienced on some foreign launchers for key satellite systems\u00a0 \u2013 as well as a lot of academic teams, especially in the life and physical sciences, plus commercial experiments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Future internal studies will be looking at the behaviour of heat pipes and reactions wheels, used for satellite thermal and attitude control, respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of factors turn out to shift along with gravity: bubble sizes change, convection currents accelerate and alloys form in novel ways. Electrical plasmas alter and test animals lose fat mass.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the computers and associated equipment used in experiments also need checking, because their performance might be degraded too: computers may fail to cool down, standard microscope light sources have been known to flicker.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTraditionally, scientists have taken the value of gravity for granted as a rigid, fixed number,\u201d adds Jack. \u201cBut it isn\u2019t: we\u2019re able to manipulate and modulate the\u00a0g<\/i>\u00a0term within an equation, which offers a lot of new approaches.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor many years the scientific community maintained a central focus on microgravity, with the partial gravity of the Moon and Mars emerging as an interest in the recent years. But that\u2019s a very human-centric approach, looking only at the planetary bodies people can inhabit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith this centrifuge, research teams can find out how systems respond across the entire spectrum of gravity, gaining a range of results they can use to validate models, observe the general direction of changes to varying gravity levels, then extrapolate higher or lower as needed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA decided to build the centrifuge to enlarge the array of research infrastructure it could offer the European research community, with the encouragement of the\u00a0European Low Gravity Research Association<\/a>\u00a0and financial backing from the Dutch government.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s Life and Physical Sciences Instrumentation section had a long tradition of building small centrifuges flown during space missions, typically offering a 1\u00a0g<\/i>\u00a0inflight control for microgravity experiments. Designing the centrifuge meant scaling up this approach, with engineering performed by Portuguese machining company Zeugma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In January\u00a0ESA will celebrate the centrifuge\u2019s first decade<\/a>, giving the team the opportunity to hear from their user community on desired future upgrades and new research ideas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Further ahead, a next-generation centrifuge has been proposed from an\u00a0ESA Topical team<\/a>\u00a0study: measuring around 200 m in diameter, this\u00a0\u201cHuman Hypergravity Habitat\u201d<\/a>\u00a0would be big enough for people to live in a hypergravity environment for months on end.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After 14 million revolutions, ESA\u2019s Large Diameter Centrifuge is about to mark its 10th birthday. The 8 m-diameter four-arm centrifuge gives researchers access to a range of hypergravity up to 20 times Earth gravity for weeks or months at a time. At its fastest, the centrifuge rotates at up to 67 revs per minute, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",600,338,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",600,338,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",550,310,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",95,54,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",625,352,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",96,54,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Large_Diameter_Centrifuge_large.jpg",150,84,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}