The students were awarded travel scholarships from ESA Education Office via the Conference Opportunities for Sponsored Students (ECOSS) Programme and from ELGRA (European Low Gravity Research Association).
They are part of the StELIUM team, a group of four people, including also Inés Rivoalen and the former student Alvaro Romero Calvo, which was awarded a fellowship from the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to perform a series of experiments at ZARM’s drop tower in Bremen.
Ferrotec Corporation is partner of the project and supplied ferromagnetic liquids tested by the students, showing an augmented response to magnetic fields. This characteristic may enable new approaches to the management of liquids in low-gravity environments. The team is now finishing the construction of the experimental setup, which will be launched in November 2019.
The initiative is coordinated by the Space Propulsion Lab, Dept. Aerospace Science and Technology of Politecnico di Milano and includes the Departments of Fluid Mechanics and of Applied Physics III of the University of Seville, and the Autonomous Vehicle Systems Laboratory of the University of Colorado Boulder.