Categories: Space Flight

JAXA Releases Boomerang Experiment Video

During the STS-123 mission to the International Space Station in March 2008 Japanese astronaut Takeo Doi tested a special boomerang in space to see how it worked in the microgravity environment of the ISS. The boomerang used in the experiment was a “Roomerang,” a small, tri-blade boomerang intended for use indoors in a small area or outdoors in light winds. IT was designed by boomerang expert Gary Broadbent, and it travels 5 to 8 feet before returning to the thrower.

The Japanese Space Agency has now released the video of the event:

As you can see, it worked very well, even in the small space of the ISS module. Broadbent told Universe Today that in the pressurized environment of the ISS, “microgravity has very little effect on the boomerang flight. The boomerang is so versatile, it can be tuned to fly in a perfect path back to the thrower, with gyroscopic precession and angular momentum over-compensating the lack of gravity.”

But Broadbent also said that a boomerang would not work in the vacuum of space. “You need air molecules to generate the lift to make the boomerang turn,” he said.

Here’s our earlier article about the boomerang experiment.

Original News Source: You Tube

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

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