Asian Try Zero G 2022 Wrap-Up Session was held!

The Wrap-Up Session of the Asian Try Zero-G (ATZG) 2022 was held online on March 17, 2023, and the proposers of all six experiments presented their analysis results. Astronaut WAKATA who performed the experiment and astronaut ONISHI, who attended the on-orbit experiment viewing on January 17, 2023 at the Tsukuba Space Center, also participated in the Wrap-Up Session. 45 participants from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand participated in this Session.

Astronaut ONISHI made an opening remark, and the Session started.

An experiment to observe the dynamics of copper particles with a diameter of about 1 mm using two cameras. In the initial state, it was observed that the moving speed of copper particles, the number of moving copper particles, and the collisions of moving copper particles decreased. The copper particle groups (clusters) that were expected to form after the collision of the copper particles could not be observed because the particles stuck to the inner surface of the case due to static electricity. The proposer said that it was able to consider more optimal experimental conditions for the next experiment opportunity.

Proposers commented that their passion for working in the space industry increased due to the difficulty of creating experimental equipment on the ISS and the interaction with students from participating countries / region.

The experiment to observe and compare various rotation states of a rigid body with a uniform weight balance at both ends and a center of gravity at the center of the object, and two rigid bodies with different weight balances and a center of gravity not at the center of the object.
It was observed that both the horizontal axis and the vertical axis rotate stably and continuously. Also, although the Javennikov effect was not initially expected, translational motion and secondary rotation were observed due to the unbalanced loading on both ends.
Based on the results of this study, a new experiment of rotating a more complicated object was proposed.

The youngest team to participate in this time. The experiment is on how a jointed pendulum (double pendulum), which is said to be chaos on the ground, moves in a microgravity environment. Since the arms of the pendulum are the same length, the joint is exactly in the middle. The movement of the pendulum was observed by pushing a quartered point from the tip of the pendulum to the support point. They compared the in-orbit motion with the motion on the ground from the video recording to analyze the experiment. As a result, in the microgravity environment, the movements are not more complicated than on the ground. They considered why the reason is that the frictional force of the joints is dominant in the movement of the pendulum.

Based on this result, they proposed to reduce the coefficient of friction as much as possible with ball bearings and to experiment with a double pendulum with arms of different lengths as the next experiment.

A total of three experiments were carried out, starting with how vortices generated by rotational force are generated in a microgravity environment (Experiment A), lateral rotation (Experiment B), and observation of the behavior of bubbles generated by finely shaking a bottle (Experiment C: in cooperation with Singapore).

According to the results of the analysis, leading to the conclusion that as originally predicted, in a microgravity environment, the vortex becomes hollow in the middle, water adheres to the bottle surface (experiment A), and water separates into two sides inside the bottle (experiment A). B), small air bubbles remain in the water (experiment C). Also, in experiment A, it was possible to observe the movement of bubbles along the rotation axis.

Originally aiming to be a space technology engineer, he commented that this time he participated with the goal of improving own English skills, and that his passion for space development became even stronger.

A water sphere, which maintains its spherical shape due to surface tension, was hit by two types of balls, one made of wood and another made of iron, and the state of the ball was observed. As a result, an iron ball, which has a larger mass than a wooden one, moves straight against the water sphere because it obtains greater kinetic energy than the surface tension, but a wooden ball is more affected by the surface tension and moves along the surface of the water sphere. Therefore, the adhesive force and cohesive force were investigated. There was advice to deepen the discussion on surface tension and wettability.

At first, it was also planned an experiment in which a rotating body (wooden top) was in contact with the surface of the water sphere and rotated, but unfortunately it was not carried out because the initial planned time for the space experiment was greatly exceeded.
She commented that they could not do it and would like to do it if they have the next opportunity.

This time, it was planned to experiment with 6 types of tube materials and systems, including spares, but due to time constraints, only used 5 types of tubes. It was predicted that 1.1 times more capillary action would occur in the microgravity environment than on the ground, but in this experiment, it was unable to confirm the expression of capillary action in all five types of tubes.

The contact angle is a major factor in this result. In the preliminary verification at the time of the proposal, it was verified with a tube made by glass that has an extremely low contact angle with water (less than half the contact angle of plastic). However, glass tubes are difficult to launch to the space station due to the danger of breakage.

She said that he learned about the difficulty of space experiments through the participation this time and commented that she would like to try again in the future by examining materials, surface treatments, and tube shapes.

As a result of strict scoring by the judges of Kibo-ABC participating countries / region, "Self-organization and 3D pattern formation of powder gas (Japan)" and "Observation of water polo disturbance in microgravity environment (Thailand)" were selected. Two themes were tied and won the Kibo-ABC Award. Dr. Namchai CHEWAWIWAT from Thailand's NSTDA, which had the largest number of participants in Asian Try Zero G2022, announced the Kibo-ABC Award.

Astronaut WAKATA, who conducted experiments in orbit, selected the crew award, and Astronaut ONISHI made a presentation. The Crew Award was given to " The Water Vortex in Zero Gravity Condition (Taiwan)", "The procedure for understanding the behavior of water in zero gravity was clearly shown, and the visualization of the phenomenon was devised.'' was the reason for the selection.

After the award ceremony, everyone watched the commemorative photo with astronaut WAKATA in orbit.

At the closing remarks, Dr. SHIRAKAWA, Director of JEM Utilization Center, expressed appreciations for the unique experiment proposal and report, and reported explained that Asian Try Zero-G 2023 was planned as the next opportunity.

At the end, Astronaut WAKATA, who managed to attend even though he had just returned to Earth, gave a special thanks to the participants and stated that arousing further interest in post-experiment analysis results will lead to the development of science, with reffering the words of Jinna Waiwattana, who received the Kibo-ABC Award, and also emphasized the importance of maintaining an interest in the microgravity environment, which is a special environment that differs from the ground and creates new scientific value.