The experiment themes for Asian Try Zero-G 2025 have been selected!

Experiment at Kibo
Kibo Utilization Office for Asia (KUOA)

Summary

We invited the 9 Kibo-ABC* member countries/region** to submit applications for the themes of a simple space experiment for young people (Asian Try Zero-G 2025) to be carried out by Astronaut sometime in the second half of 2025 to beginning of 2026. This year, the call for proposal was for experiments that enable visual confirmation of physical phenomena. As a result, a total of 500 applications were received from 1,176 applicants. (Table 1)
After conducting the first selection process for each participating country/region, 11 themes were selected during the final screening meeting, which included representatives from all participating countries/region. (Table 2)

* Kibo-ABC (Asia-Pacific Cooperation Initiative Using Kibo) is an initiative established by the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) to promote the use of the Japanese Experiment Module ‘Kibo’ in the Asia-Pacific region and to share the value gained through Kibo's use. There are 20 member institutions from 14 countries/region.

** Participating countries/region (in alphabetical order): Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE

Table 1 Number of proposals and participants from Kibo-ABC member countries/region

Country/Region	No. of Proposals	No. of Participants
Australia	6	8
Bangladesh	9	21
Japan	17	49
Malaysia	46	101
Philippines	89	201
Singapore	17	63
Taiwan	67	195
Thailand	232	464
UAE	17	74
TOTAL	500	1176

Table 2 Selected themes (in alphabetical order of country/region name)

	Country/Region	Theme
1	Australia	Water Spring
2	Bangladesh	Shaping Water Droplets in Microgravity Using Thin Copper Wires
3	Japan	Do the wingtip vortices of paper airplane come from the gravity?
4	Japan	Is a paper airplane able to fly despite of wing imbalances under zero gravity?
5	Malaysia	Conservation of Angular Momentum
6	Philippines	Double Gyroscope
7	Singapore	How uneven mass dispersion affects the rotation of a rigid structure with 3 distinct axes of rotation
8	Taiwan	The Liquid Waltz: Observing Fluid Dynamics in a Dancing Slinky
9	Thailand	Studying the behavior of Simple Harmonic Motion in the spring in microgravity conditions
10	Thailand	Dynamics of liquid bridge in microgravity
11	UAE	Investigating Harmonic motion and Damping effects in Microgravity

First Selection

The selection process was divided into two stages: the first selection and the final selection. In the first selection, each participating country/region used common evaluation criteria to evaluate the themes from the perspectives of scientific significance/novelty, safety, operability, and feasibility to select the best three themes.
For instance, Space Faculty was the local organizer in Singapore, and selected 3 experiment themes for the Asian Try Zero-G 2025 national selection. (Figure 1)
In Thailand, which received the largest number of applications this year, the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) managed the Asian Try Zero G 2025 program, which was reviewed by a committee including the NSTDA Space Education Program Manager and experts from the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), National Metals and Materials Technology Center (MTEC), and National Nanotechnology Center (NANOTEC). (Figure 2)
In the first selection in Taiwan, participants presented their proposals at a presentation competition hosted by the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), and the top group was selected as the representatives. (Figure 3)

Figure 2　First selection in Thailand

Figure 3　First selection in Taiwan

Final Selection

During the final selection process, we received advice from Astronaut Furukawa, who conducted Asian Try Zero-G in 2023, on technical feasibility and other aspects of the project. (Figure 4)

At the final selection meeting (Figure 5) held by all participating countries/region, the 27 themes that passed the first selection were evaluated using common evaluation criteria with reference to the above advice, and 11 themes were selected.

The selected themes will be conducted sometime in the second half of 2025 to the beginning of 2026.

Figure 4　Discussion with Astronaut Furukawa

Figure 5　Final selection meeting attended by all participating institutions

Thank you very much for your many submissions.
If you were unfortunately not selected this time, we look forward to hearing from you again at the next Asian Try Zero-G.

Kibo

Experiment at Kibo

KUOA

Kibo Utilization Office for Asia

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