ORLANDO, Fla. – The avenues to send science into a space-like environment is increasing as the number of small launch companies continue to grow.This weekend the University of Central Florida will have a payload flying in Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and then as soon as next week another research experiment flying as part of a NASA mission with Virgin Orbit’s Launcher One.UCF planetary scientist Josh Colwell was in New Mexico this week waiting for his research project Collisions Into Dust Experiment, known as COLLIDE, to take a quick trip into low-Earth orbit inside the private spaceplane SpaceShipTwo.
Colwell and UCF planetary scientist Addie Dove are co-investigators on the project that has previously flown twice with Virgin.