Ground-based experiments are fast and convenient ways to simulate microgravity environments. Typically, payloads are simply dropped from a height using a drop tower or drop shaft in order to produce free-falling conditions, but this method can only simulate microgravity for very short durations. The University of Central Florida has created a laboratory drop tower in which an experiment is subjected to approximately 0.75 seconds of microgravity.
UCF also possesses other ground-based experiments whose goals are not to achieve microgravity, but to investigate the behavior of regolith and other particles at 1-g.
Quick Links To The CMRE’s Ground-Based Research Experiments: