Access to earthbound weightlessness is critical to many branches of applied sciences. Besides, several space systems require microgravity testing before their launch. Existing solutions (drop towers, parabolic flights, sounding rockets) offer variable durations and qualities of microgravity environment, but their cost and lead times make them unpractical for small actors such as universities or start-up companies. This leads to a growing interest for alternative microgravity platforms. Here, we study the use of gliders to perform parabolic flights at a lower cost, and we propose a systematic quantification of glider’s 0-g flight capabilities. Results of our flight test campaign show that gliders offer up to 5.5s of weightlessness, with excursions below 0.1g, and a satisfactory level of repeatability. Besides, the recordings do not suffer from the increased level of vibrations generated by piston engines, typical of light-aircraft-based alternatives. Operational considerations associated with glider parabolic flights are also discussed. Finally, we conclude that a microgravity platform based on gliders would be suitable especially for compact experiments and equipment in order to support accelerated design and development, or to produce preliminary experimental results.

获得地球失重对应用科学的许多分支至关重要。此外，一些空间系统在发射之前需要进行微重力测试。现有解决方案（落塔，抛物线飞行，探空火箭）可提供不同的持续时间和微重力环境的质量，但是它们的成本和交付周期使它们对诸如大学或初创公司之类的小型参与者而言并不实用。这导致人们对替代微重力平台的兴趣日益浓厚。在这里，我们研究了使用滑翔机以较低的成本执行抛物线飞行，并提出了对滑翔机0-g飞行能力的系统量化。我们的飞行测试结果表明，滑翔机可提供高达5.5s的失重，偏移低于0.1g，可重复性令人满意。除了，录音不会受到活塞发动机产生的振动加剧的影响，这是轻型飞机替代品的典型表现。还讨论了与滑翔机抛物线飞行相关的操作注意事项。最后，我们得出结论，基于滑翔机的微重力平台特别适合紧凑型实验和设备，以支持加速的设计和开发，或产生初步的实验结果。