Equipment for Space Experiments Produced at Szolnok Vocational Training Center

The Szolnok Vocational Training Center is involved in the preparation of space experiments, where the production of experimental devices is already well underway, the chancellor of the vocational training center revealed at a press conference on Monday.

Following Bertalan Farkas’ space flight in 1980, Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu is scheduled to fly into space at the end of May to carry out various experiments, including physics, during his space mission, György Hicsó said.

The experiments are part of the UNIverZOOM program, a collaboration between the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) and the HUNOR (Hungarian to Orbit) space program.

The aim of the program is to raise interest in engineering and science among as many secondary school students as possible. BME and HUNOR are expecting 300 secondary schools to join the program, with one physics teacher and 15-20 students per school, he said. The program will also provide teachers with theoretical and practical training, mentoring, and experimental packages, he added.

Hungarian secondary school students will be able to follow the physics and science experiments of Tibor Kapu live on the International Space Station (ISS).

The schools will join the program at their own locations, and at the same time, Károly Härtlein, a master teacher at BME, and fellow ELTE researcher Miklós Vincze, a physicist, will give an extraordinary physics lesson, he said. Gyula Cserényi, the reserve astronaut of the HUNOR program, is also playing an active role in the project’s technical support.

Hicsó noted that

the Szolnok Vocational Training Center had the honor of developing two experiments together with Károly Härtlein.

The experiments presented in zero gravity by the Hungarian astronaut will also be carried out by students in ground conditions, for which the center will produce devices that will be delivered to the schools participating in the program. The experimental devices for the students are made with 3D printers.

He added that two types of experimental devices – a gravity tester and a liquid lens magnifier – are being produced at the institution,

one of which is already being tested at NASA and has been accepted for experiments in space to be carried out by Kapu.

Five thousand pieces of each of the two types of device are being produced at the Szolnok Vocational Training Center.

Via MTI, Featured image: Wikipedia / Ron Garan, NASA