Space Grains

An article from the Topical Team has been published in August 2018:                            
Threshold of gas-like to clustering transition in driven granular media in low-gravity environment, EPL (Europhysics Letters) 123, 14003 (2018)

An article from the whole Topical Team has been published in July 2018:                             An instrument for studying granular media in low-gravity environment                         Review of Scientific Instruments 89, 075103 (2018)

Following the joint proposal GRANULOGY between Europe (ESA) and China (CMSA), a meeting took place at Liège (26 June 2018) with Chinese and European members of Space Grains.

A clear common interest is to optimize the use of ISS and China Space Station (CSS) resources by sharing our complementary instruments (VIP-Gran from ESA side and a shear instrument from CMSA) and flight opportunities for the mutual scientific benefit of all. Both instruments could thus be used as a versatile platform to target experiments planned in the continuity of previous ESA and CMSA developments.

The Space Grains collaboration used the Vip-Gran instrument during the 69th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign, 16 – 26 April, 2018 at Novespace, Bordeaux (France).

Dynamics of Brownian-like particles moving in a thermalized granular gas has been investigated.

The workshop will be held in MSC laboratory, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France, on 12-13 March 2018  to prepare the 6th Parabolic Flight Campaign (ESA PFC69) of the Vip-Gran instrument. ESA PFC69 campaign is scheduled from 16 to 27 April 2018.

The Space Grains collaboration will use the Vip-Gran instrument during the 67th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign, November 6 to November 16, 2017 at Novespace, Bordeaux (France)

The Space Grains collaboration will use the Vip-Gran instrument during the 66th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign, May 9 to May 19, 2017 at Novespace, Bordeaux (France)

The goal was to defined the ESR (Experimental Scientific Requirements) for the ISS prototype of the Vip-Gran instrument. Various cells have been defined, among them:    3D and 2D dry cells, Wet cell,  Sound cell, Shear cell…