Pictured from left, Krissy Vasquez, Ryan Prentice, Danaan Thome, Nick Wiz, and Cassidy Guajardo.

Can a rock be accurately weighed in a weightless environment, such as the International Space Station?

Five physics students known as the “Austin Space Aces” from the Austin Community College District believe they have devised a novel and accurate way to do it, and plan to test their hypothesis during a zero-gravity simulated NASA flight.

This year, ACC was the only community college in the nation chosen by NASA to fly and test an experiment. They will join teams of other students from such prestigious four-year universities as Yale and Cornell.

The Austin Space Aces will participate in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program and will experience what it feels like to float in space, as they plummet toward Earth in a series of 2-mile free-falls in NASA’s DC-9 known as the “Weightless Wonder.” Using their own device known as the Centrifugal Microgravity Mass Assessment System, the students plan to accurately measure the mass of small rocks and other calibrated samples in micro or little gravity.

The Austin Space Aces departed Wednesday, March 21, for NASA’s Johnson Space Center. This is the second time ACC students have been selected for a NASA experiment. In 2002 another ACC team experienced a similar weightless flight.