Microgravity

Some of the earliest concerns about fluid behavior in microgravity was the management of propellants in spacecraft tanks as they orbited the Earth. On the ground, gravity pulls a fluid to a bottom of a tank (ig, left). In orbit, fluid behavior depends on surface tension, viscosity, wetting effects with the container wall, and other factors. In some cases, a propellant can wet a tank and leave a large gas bubbles in the center (ug, right). Similar probelms can affect much smaller experiments using fluids in small spaces. Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Research Center.