WHAT EXPERIMENTS IS NASA SENDING ON BOARD THE VIRGIN GALACTIC SPACE TRIP?
The fledgling space firm owned by billionaire Richard Branson will carry four research payloads that are part of the NASA Flight Opportunities Program.
These include looking at hoe dust swirls on asteroids and in space, looking into the feasibility of life support systems for deep-space habitation, growing food in space and reducing the impact of vibrations on payloads going into space.
The formal names and an explanation of what they aim to find are outlined below
Collisions Into Dust Experiment (COLLIDE)
One of the experiments on-board the Virgin Galactic flight, known as COLLIDE, will help further refine the understanding of dust particles on planetary surfaces.
The microgravity of suborbital flights will allow the researchers to gather data useful for designing exploration architectures at the Moon, Mars and beyond.
COLLIDE will simulate the dusty surface of an asteroid and a surface impact and collect high-quality video of the dust dispersing.
Microgravity Multi-Phase Flow Experiment for Suborbital Testing
The interactions of gases and liquids are essential in biological processes and more information is needed to understand how these different phases interact.
This experiment will delve into how gas and liquid in microgravity react and how this can be applied.
Validating Telemetric Imaging Hardware for Crew-Assisted and Crew-Autonomous Biological Imaging in Suborbital Applications
This project from the University of Florida will look into how plausible it is to grow food for long-term deep-space habitation.
Microgravity affects plant growth and the experiment uses a biological fluorescent imaging instrument to collect data on the biological response of a plant.
Vibration Isolation Platform
Spacecraft and payloads are subject to intense launch environments.
This experiment uses a mounted system which is designed to lessen disturbances on payloads during launch, re-entry and landing
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