AAE's 35th & Purdue's 47th student team to fly on NASA's "Vomit Comet"
| Event Date: | December 6, 2012 |
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AAE's 35th & Purdue's 47th team has been selected to fly in summer 2013 in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, or RGSFOP. They are part of Prof. Steven Collicott's unique design-build-test class AAE418 - Zero-Gravity Flight Experiment class.
The team’s proposal led by Joe Fakler is "Water Removal in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells." The team worked since August 2012 in experiment design, fuel cell operational details, K-12 outreach, proposal writing, and fabrication of prototypes to show the feasibility of the unique parts of the proposed experiment construction techniques.
NASA’s Flight program, also affectionately known as the Vomit Comet provides periods of weightlessness lasting about 25 seconds during a ‘parabola’ giving students little time to perform their science research. Purdue has had one or more teams every year selected since the program began in 1996.
Photo caption
L~R Chris Yamamoto -alternate, Joshua Wolf - flyer, John Yerant – reserve, Sagar Thapa – flyer, Brent Justice – flyer, Patrick J. Griffin – flyer, Joe Fakler team leader and flyer, (not pictured Trevvor Long)