"Weightless Parabolic Flight: Witnessing Soaring Student Science"
Elizabeth Howell, a staff writer for Space.com, shares her experience of flying on a parabolic flight in Canada, simulating the weightlessness of space. The flight included science experiments conducted by student teams supported by Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) Canada and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Parabolic flights are becoming essential for astronaut training, and companies like Zero-G are seeing increased demand for training forthcoming astronauts. The National Research Council Canada (NRC) operates a parabolic jet program for research purposes and partners with SEDS Canada and CSA to bring student researchers on board. The students' experiments focus on physical and life sciences, and the flights provide a unique hands-on experience for the students to develop and conduct their experiments.