Feeling free, feeling 0-g!

Following the great success of the Student Parabolic Flight Campaigns that it organised in 1994 and 1995, ESA decided to make them an annual event for students from the Agency's Member States. An initiative of ESA's Education Office, the campaigns give talented students a unique opportunity to experience weightlessness whilst performing their own scientific experiments, and hopefully encourage them to consider pursuing a career in space. The fifth Student Parabolic Flight Campaign (SPFC) took place from Bordeaux-Merignac Airport in southwest France in the first weeks of September 2002, with more than 120 students participating. Their thirty-two experiments had been selected in a Europe-wide competition and covered a wide variety of disciplines. The great enthusiasm shown by the students and the wide coverage that the campaign received in the media demonstrated the growing interest in space education and the promotional value of the campaign.