Hey y’all,

It’s an exciting week for us on the micro-g team here at csi! We’ll be going to Houston next week to test the LionClaw, our design for a microgravity anchor. The anchor would theoretically be used by spacecraft visiting near-Earth asteroids, which are essentially asteroids closer to us than Mars is (roughly 50 million miles or less; space scales are weird). Because these asteroids are so small, the amount of gravity we would experience on them would be negligible, so we need an anchor to keep our astronauts on its surface.

NASA has generously provided us and other undergraduate teams the opportunity to test our anchor at the National Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL). The NBL is a giant pool where astronauts run simulations or test equipment to mimic the weightlessness experienced in space and on asteroids! We’re extremely excited
to test our design there!

We’ll be keeping you updated on our progress in Houston as we test the design, but for now, we’ll be working hard in Columbia’s excellent machine shop and makerspace. If you’re in the area, feel free to come and check out our design if you have any questions or would like to see it for yourself! Columbia has kindly provided the resources that have made this design possible, so it is the least we can do in return to the Columbia community.

Look out for Kristina, Tamas, or Brian (pictured below).

-Jordi