Microgravity Fluids and Combustion Research at NASA Glenn Research Center

At the dawn of the Space Age, the design of early rocket and spacecraft systems presented significant challenges because of the low-gravity environment of space. Motivated by these challenges, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) pioneered the development of low-gravity facilities-including drop towers, sounding rockets, zero-gravity (zero-g) aircraft, and most importantly, space-based facilities-to advance microgravity research to further the nation's space exploration efforts. These efforts resulted in improved spacecraft system designs and practices in areas as diverse as fluid handling and spacecraft fire safety. At the same time, researchers realized that the microgravity environment allows the study of fundamental combustion and fluid physics problems, without the complication of buoyancy-induced convection. Microgravity testing enabled advancements in areas of technological and ecological importance in terrestrial applications such as global atmospheric change, combustor design, groundwater pollution, oil production, and advanced materials manufacturing, which often rely on advances in fluid physics and chemically reacting flows. GRC has been a leader in microgravity fluid physics and combustion research for more than 50 years. This paper highlights the facilities and some of the many accomplishments. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000293. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.