Students experience free-fall for physics

A team of current, past and future University of Central Florida students floated around in weightlessness like astronauts this month as part of a physics experiment that could provide valuable information for future trips to the Moon or asteroids.

UCF Associate Professor Josh Colwell is lead the team of students on a Zero-G flight on a specially modified Boeing 727 on Nov. 20. The students manned several experiments during the flight, which departed from Titusville municipal airport.

Zero-G is provided the special plane. It conducted parabolic maneuvers that achieve weightlessness. Specially trained pilots fly these maneuvers at between 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude. The weightlessness is exactly what astronauts experience in space.

Read more about the physics experiment here.