Selected for the 66th Parabolic Flight Campaign of the French CNES. Designed and ran six original microgravity experiments spanning fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, chemistry, and classical mechanics, aboard a Zero-G aircraft over Bordeaux.
Design experiments demonstrating physical phenomena that change meaningfully in microgravity
Meet CNES safety and design review requirements for a manned flight campaign
Execute all experiments within 20-second parabolic microgravity windows
Collect usable data and document results for post-flight analysis
We brainstormed and evaluated dozens of ideas across fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, chemistry, and classical mechanics, then selected six experiments that would change meaningfully in weightlessness and still produce clear, observable results inside a 20-second window. Each one started as a concept sketch and a CAD model.
Over several months we built and iterated on the experiment rigs to pass CNES's safety requirements: aluminum-frame structures, sealed acrylic enclosures, and self-contained fluid apparatus. This meant structural reviews, material-compatibility checks, and repeated design presentations to CNES engineers, each revision making the hardware safer, simpler, and more reliable.
Before flight, we ran every experiment on the ground to rehearse the procedure and set a 1-g baseline, from spinning up a vortex on a magnetic stirrer to tracking how a dye disperses through water. Ground testing is what let us trust the few seconds we would get in the air.
The campaign took place in Bordeaux aboard CNES's Zero-G aircraft. During each parabola the aircraft follows a Keplerian arc that produces about 20 seconds of weightlessness. We ran the experiments across multiple parabolas, operating the rigs and capturing data in real time, then processed the results afterward. Observing physics in real weightlessness, convection stopping, fluids floating free, forces behaving differently, was unlike anything a ground lab can offer.
DETAILED WRITE-UPS LINKED ON EACH CARD · IN FRENCH
How a maelstrom forms, and what happens to a vortex when gravity is taken away.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗Hot rises and cold sinks on Earth. Testing whether natural convection survives in weightlessness.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗Spinning to create artificial gravity, a building block for long-duration space travel.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗How immiscible liquids separate, or refuse to, when there is no gravity to drive decantation.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗Watching a dye spread to isolate pure molecular diffusion from gravity-driven mixing.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗The Mentos-and-soda geyser as a clean demonstration of action and reaction.
READ THE WRITE-UP↗The campaign was a success. All six experiments ran as planned across the flight, and we collected clean data from each parabola. Seeing the predictions hold in real weightlessness, after a year of design, building, and CNES reviews, made every late night worth it. The campaign earned two of our students a flight aboard the CNES Zero-G aircraft and positioned the club for two consecutive Young Searchers Prize victories in the years that followed. It remains one of the most formative engineering and leadership experiences of my career so far.