Click here for a movie of the 2000 Weightless Wildcats
in action!
Main picture of DOTCOM.
UK Deployment of Thin-film Cylindrical Orbital Membrane
(UK.DOT.COM)
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Photos Courtesy of Weightless Wildcats
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Abstract
The University of Kentucky Weightless Wildcats is a
group of Engineering students with the main objective of proposing
and testing experiments in an environment free of gravitational
acceleration (zero-g). For the year 2000, the purpose of the
experiment was to verify a mathematical model of the deployment
of an inflatable space structure. In the future, the results
of this project could help with the design of future inflatable
structures for satellites and space stations.
The experiment, dubbed UK.DOT.COM. (University of Kentucky
Deployment of Thin-film, Cylindrical Orbital Membrane), measured
air pressures at the ends of a long cylindrical inflatable structure.
Accelerometers also recorded the motion of the ends of the tube
(initially folded) as it was pressurized and deployed. The weightless
environment of the KC-135 allows the experiment to be conducted
free of friction and other forces that would affect the deployment.
Ellington Field (near Johnson Space Center) in Houston,
Texas, is where members of the Weightless Wildcats conducted UK.DOT.COM.
The weightless environment is attained aboard a NASA-modified
KC-135 Stratotanker, which flies in a series of parabolic trajectories,
causing 25 to 30 second periods of alternating zero and two-g
gravity. A total of four team members (two each day) flew aboard
the jet to conduct the experiment.
This year's Weightless Wildcats were led by former
flyer Andrew Clem, a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering
from Nicholasville, Kentucky. The members of the team that flew
on the KC-135 this year included Ron Couch, Christina Samson,
Courtney Byers, and Chris Barker. Ron Couch is a senior Mechanical
Engineering student from Lexington, Kentucky. Christina Samson,
of Frankfort, Kentucky, is a junior Mechanical Engineering major.
Courtney Byers is a sophomore Mechanical Engineering major from
Louisville, Kentucky. Chris Barker is a sophomore Electrical
Engineering major from Dayton, Ohio. The ground crew members
of the team included Bobby Jones, a sophomore Mechanical Engineering
major from Lexington, Justin Kearns, a sophomore Mechanical Engineering
major also from Lexington, Susan Moore, a senior Mechanical Engineering
major from Albany, NY, Dustin Elliott, a sophomore Mechanical
Engineering major from Hebron, Kentucky, Janelle Merrick, a freshman
Mechanical Engineering major from Lexington, and Les Miller, a
freshman.
Sponsors for this year's project include the University
of Kentucky Department of Mechanical Engineering, ILC Dover, and
the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium.
The Weightless Wildcats UK.DOT.COM project was coordinated
by advisors Dr. John Main and Dr. Suzanne Weaver Smith. For more
information regarding UK.DOT.COM, contact Dr.Main at (859) 257-7137,
or by e-mail, johnmain@engr.uky.edu or Dr. Smith at (859) 257-4584
and ssmith@engr.uky.edu.
