ASC Parabolic Flights | Testing Space on Earth

Wednesday afternoon, mid-July. The weather is grey and windy. The Falcon 20 aircraft is small, but ready for takeoff. The team of engineers from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is preparing to board. For two hours, seven people will take part in the parabolic flight, which will simulate microgravity conditions 18 times. The goal? To test new devices to measure the vital signs of Canadian astronauts and to test a physical exercise machine that will go to the Moon in 2025.

What is a parabolic flight?

The plane takes off. It’s hot inside. The excitement is at its peak. Several members of the crew are on their first parabolic flight. This is the case for Tristan Richmond, head of space innovation for the ASC’s New Horizons in Health team, who wants to develop medical autonomy in space at the ASC.

“A parabolic flight is full of emotions.”

Twenty minutes after takeoff, the aircraft approaches 10,000 feet altitude. This is the beginning of the parabolas.

The plane is pulling upwards. It has to go to 45 degrees. The cabin is in hypergravity, which is twice the force of normal gravity.

The plane reaches the top of the altitude, 20,000 feet. The pilots reduce the engine speed. The cabin drops into microgravity. Everything floats. “It’s very dizzying. I felt like I was doing a barrel roll,” Richmond says.

Then the plane dives down. We find ourselves in hypergravity again. The crew straightens the plane and the loop starts again.

A parabola: 1 minute, 40 seconds of hypergravity, 20 seconds of microgravity. The flight will make 18 parabolas. The first two allow the team to adapt. The other 16, to do the experiments concerning health in microgravity. The crew has breaks every four parabolas to acclimatize.

According to the CSA, 20 to 30 percent of those who take part in such parabolic flights will become ill. In the flight we attended at the National Aeronautics School in Longueuil, few of the crew members did not vomit.

In July, the ASC made eight flights.

Why are parabolic flights important?

Parabolic flights allow space experiments to be carried out on Earth at a lower cost. “That’s millions of dollars saved on technologies that wouldn’t work [et qui seraient envoyées dans l’espace] ” explains Derek Gowanlock, a research engineer in flight testing at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

The best technologies for astronauts’ vital signs

12:30 p.m. Larissa Chiu, a master’s degree in neuroscience, attaches monitors to her own chest to measure her vital signs. Cyril Mani, a mechanical engineer, works with her to make sure everything is working before the flight departs.

They are excited. “I can’t believe this is my job,” says Mani.

This is M’s first flight^me Chiu. Mr. Mani’s third.

In the morning, the team tested blood saturation and oxygenation measurements during another parabolic flight. Low oxygenation levels indicate that the body is not getting enough oxygen, or is not transferring it adequately into the blood. In concrete terms, this can signal heart or lung problems in astronauts.

2:20 p.m. The plane takes off.

2:45 p.m. The team begins testing heart rate measurements. Cyril Mani wears a leg strap to hold his iPad. A computer sits on his other leg. He is tasked with looking at the data and guiding Larissa Chiu in using the various devices throughout the flight.

Five different technologies are being tested to measure heart rate. Seven, for blood oxygenation levels. The goal? To understand which device is effective and easy to use. And which is the least intrusive.

While some measures are effective on Earth, in weightlessness it’s a completely different story.

Without gravity, the instrument does not rest on the skin in the same way. Currently, during space missions, the pulse and blood oxygen level are taken on the finger. The astronaut is therefore limited in his activities.

The team does not expect results for about ten years.

Squats, pull-ups, rowing… in microgravity

A large gray box is installed in the middle of the plane. You wouldn’t think it was used for training. Yannick Laflamme is strapping his feet to it. The ASC space health operations assistant is lying on the ground.

Once the plane has taken off and weightlessness is felt, it floats horizontally. The exercise can begin. The first, dumbbell deadlifts, is done using pulleys. The same goes for squats and rowing. All these exercises are done on the same machine: a flywheel – a device used for weightless exercise sessions. The more force the person using it generates, the heavier the load felt.

On average, despite a daily exercise program, astronauts lose 1% of their bone density for every month spent in space. On Earth, a normal elderly person loses the same bone density in a year.

The flywheel is approved by NASA and the CSA to go into space, but it has never been there. We are witnessing the first Canadian tests in microgravity. NASA is scheduled to test it next November.

Normally, exercise machines are not attached to the structure in flights, but for Artemis, yes. We want to check the vibration level and see how it damages the flywheel.

Yannick Laflamme, Space Health Operations Assistant at the ASC

The International Space Station (ISS) has four separate exercise machines. On some missions, every square meter is counted.

Small and lightweight, the flywheel will be on Artemis II, a NASA-led lunar mission in which the CSA is collaborating. Astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be the first Canadian to go to the Moon. The launch is scheduled for September 2025.