The new technology will “open the world of microgravity research to a new market.”
BHAero, a UK-based drone company, has announced plans to launch a new service that offers short periods of microgravity for scientific research and experimentation. The company’s founder, Dr. Bhupendra Khandelwal, envisions the service as a game-changer for the field of microgravity research.
In an interview with Interesting Engineering, Dr. Khandelwal explained, “We believe that providing a microgravity service using drones will help revolutionize the field of microgravity research. Currently, microgravity research is only accessible to a select few organizations due to the high cost associated with conducting experiments in space. Our service will make microgravity research more affordable and accessible to a wider range of organizations.”
BHAero’s microgravity service works by flying a specially designed drone in a parabolic flight path, which creates short periods of weightlessness inside the drone’s cabin. The service will be available for use in a variety of scientific fields, such as materials science, fluid dynamics, and biology.
Dr. Khandelwal also noted that BHAero has already received interest from several organizations and plans to start testing the service later this year. “We have had interest from a number of organizations, including universities and research institutions. We are confident that our microgravity service will provide a unique and valuable research tool, and we look forward to seeing the results of the experiments conducted using our service.”
If successful, BHAero’s microgravity service could help democratize the field of microgravity research and unlock new scientific discoveries.