Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Session will start at 10 a.m. PT – Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

Community of Practice Webinar Series – November 1, 2023

Edward Balaban, Ph.D., NASA’s Ames Research Center

Wanessa Priesmeyer, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics in Microgravity

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Welcome to the Community of Practice Webinar Series!

First, a bit of housekeeping...

• Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

• Today’s session will be recorded

• Recordings for this and all future sessions will be posted on the Flight 

Opportunities website

• Please engage!

• Use the chat throughout the session to ask questions

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

2

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Welcome to the Community of Practice Webinar Series!

Flight Opportunities hopes these webinars will enable researchers, 

program staff, and flight providers to connect informally and share 

information

• Designed to distill and share the most important lessons learned to:

• Increase the impact of suborbital flight tests

• Transfer best practices

• Optimize the experience of current and prospective program participants

• Part of a broad effort to capture, organize, and communicate lessons learned 

by suborbital researchers

• An opportunity to hear from subject matter experts on best practices for 

preparing for suborbital flight tests

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Join us for future Community of Practice webinars!

Subscribe to our newsletter for 

updates on future webinars!

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/fli

ghtopportunities/newsletter

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Future webinars

• Webinars are held 1st Wednesday of each 

month at 10 a.m. PT

• Topics will be announced in the Flight 

Opportunities newsletter and website

• Session recordings will be posted on the 

Flight Opportunities website

• Let us know session topics you would like 

to see covered

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Now open: NASA TechLeap Universal Payload Interface Challenge

• Challenge seeks interface systems that can efficiently integrate diverse payloads onto a range of flight 

vehicles, including suborbital, orbital, and planetary lander vehicles

• Register by Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 5 pm ET

• Applications due Thursday, February 22, 2024 at 5 pm ET

• Winners are eligible to win up to $650K in prizes and an opportunity to flight test their system

www.upic.nasatechleap.org

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Today’s Speakers

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Edward Balaban

Research Scientist

NASA’s Ames Research Center

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Campaign Manager / Deputy Technical Lead 

for the Integration of Automated Systems

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

4

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Community of Practice

November 2023 | Edward Balaban

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Fluidic Telescope

Edward Balaban

NASA Ames Research Center

edward.balaban@nasa.gov

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

5

What is FLUTE?

• The Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE) project aims to develop space 

observatories with large-aperture unsegmented liquid primary 

mirrors.

• Such mirrors will be created via a novel approach based on 

fluidic shaping in microgravity.

• The approach enables a molecularly smooth, self-healing mirror 

surface and can lead to telescope mirrors measuring in tens or 

even hundreds of meters in diameter.

• FLUTE can help address some of the highest priority objectives 

of the Astro2020 survey: Earth-like exoplanets, first generation 

stars, and early galaxies.

• FLUTE is a joint effort between NASA and Technion — Israel 

Institute of Technology

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Fundamental approach

• Employs fluidic shaping to create optical components 

of a variety of useful geometries

• Microgravity serves as the enabling environment

• Natural surface tension of liquids is leveraged to achieve 

surface quality rivaling the best achievable with stateof-the-art methods ( < 1 nm RMS) 

• Scale invariant: the same physical properties remain 

regardless of component size

• Both lenses and mirrors can be produced

• Components may remain liquid — allowing for dynamic 

modulation of their properties — or can be solidified

• Has the potential of being a game-changer both for 

space telescopes and for in-space optics 

manufacturing

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

6

Examples of other optical geometries

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Team

• Edward Balaban (NASA ARC, PI-NASA)

• Moran Bercovici (Technion, PI-Technion)

• Rus Belikov (NASA ARC, astronomy/optics)

• Enrico Biancalani (UMD, instruments)

• Jay Bookbinder (NASA ARC, astronomy / optics)

• Penny Boston (NASA ARC, astrobiology / ionic liquids)

• Howard Cannon (NASA ARC, project manager)

• Kevin Carrico (NASA ARC, visualization)

• Alan Cassell (NASA ARC, mission design)

• Shintaro Chofuku (NASA ARC / JAXA, mission design)

• Anthony Colaprete (NASA ARC, instruments)

• Michael Dickey (NCSU, gallium alloys / ionic liquids) 

• Vivek Dwivedi (NASA GSFC, mirror coatings / ionic liquids)

• Mor Elgarisi (Technion, fluid mechanics)

• Jonathan Erickson (Technion, experiment design)

• George Fiedziuszko (NASA ARC, thermal analysis)

• Valeri Frumkin (Technion, fluid mechanics)

• Israel Gabay (Technion, modeling)

• Khaled Gommed (Technion, experiment design)

• Christine Gregg (NASA ARC, structures)

• Jessica Koehne (NASA ARC, measurements)

• Omer Luria (Technion, optics / experiment design)

• Dylan Morrison-Fogel (NASA ARC, mission design)

• Duy Nguyen (NASA ARC, mission cost analysis)

• Collin Payne (NASA ARC, mission design)

• Titus Szobody (NCSU, IL reflectivity)

• Rachel Ticknor (NASA ARC, mission design)

• Daniel Widerker (Technion, experiments)

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

7

Special thanks

NASA ARC (Partnerships, Legal, Management, Programs, Finance, Communications, and Administrative): Georgia Bajjalieh (ARCCPP), Jill Bauman (ARC-D), Thomas Berndt (ARC-DL), Meredith Blasingame (ARC-DL), Karen Bradford (ARC-DI), Rhys Cheung (ARCDL), Jacob Cohen (ARC-D), Gianine Figliozzi (ARC-DO), Matthew Holtrust (ARC-DI), Rachel Hoover (ARC-DO), Julia Kong (ARC-TI), 

Sonie Lau (ARC-TI), Mai Nguyen (ARC-TI), Terry Pagan (ARC-DI), Robert Padilla (ARC-DL), Harry Partridge (ARC-D), Oscar Rivas (ARCTI), Brenden Sanborn (ARC-DI), Alexander Van Dijk (ARC-DI), and Darryl Waller (ARC-DO).

NASA ARC Space Portal: Lynn Harper (ARC-DI), Graham Mackintosh (ARC-TN), Mark Newfield (ARC-DI), Bruce Pittman, Dan Rasky 

(ARC-DI), Lisa Vestal (ARC-DI), and Allison Zuniga (ARC-DI).

NASA HQ (Partnerships, Legal, and Programs): Christopher Baker (HQ-OA), Kent Bress (HQ-TF), Judith Carrodeguas (HQ-TF), 

Michael Lapointe (MSFC-ST20), Andy Parks (HQ-TF), Trenton Roche (HQ-MC), Brian Stanford (HQ-MD), and Brian Wessel (HQ-ME).

NASA AFRC (Flight Opportunities Program and Finance): Earl Adams (AFRD-570), Andrea Basham (AFRC-210), Elizabeth DiVito 

(AFRC-300), Tiffany Goodwin (AFRC-210), Gregory Peters (AFRC-330), Wanessa Priesmeyer (AFRC-310), and Chloe Tuck (AFRC570).

NASA Shared Services Center: Karen Artis (NSSC-XD).

Technion (Partnerships, Legal, Management, and Administrative): Aliza Shultzer and Nili Weitzman.

Funding: NASA ARC Center Innovation Fund, NASA Flight Opportunities Program, NASA GSFC Center Innovation Fund, NASA GSFC 

Internal Research and Development (IRAD) fund, NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), Technion CSST Fund, Israel Ministry 

of Innovation Science and Technology, and European Union (ERC, Fluidic Shaping, 10104451).

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...

Lab

Parabolic

flights

ISS

Smallsat

demo

From lab to space — 

technology 

maturation steps

Large space 

observatory

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

8

Technology maturation through flight-testing

Test campaign Objectives Status

Zero-G parabolic flights, Dec 2021

• 2 x 25 microgravity parabolas

• Technion-led

• Focus on liquid lenses

• Confirm fundamental 

principles and physics

• Collect real-time data on lens 

surface quality and geometry

• Experiments successfully completed — first 

freestanding liquid lenses created in 

microgravity

• Excellent surface and optical quality observed

ISS experiments, Apr 2022

• 2 x 25 microgravity parabolas

• Technion-led execution

• NASA-led analysis

• Focus on solidified 

components

• Test both UV and thermal 

curing approaches

• Analyze component geometry 

and surface quality

• Experiments successfully completed — first 

optical components created in space

• Also fit in a bonus experiment with large liquid 

lenses

• Lenses returned on CRS-25

• Currently being analyzed at Ames

Zero-G parabolic flights, Nov 2022

• 2 x 25 microgravity parabolas

• NASA-led

• Focus on mirror surfaces and 

model validation

• Test ALD equipment

• Experiments successfully completed

• Equipment being completed and tested

Zero-G parabolic flights, Dec 2023

• 2 x 25 microgravity parabolas

• NASA-led

• Focus frame-liquid interaction 

and surface disturbances 

models validation

• Frame-liquid interaction and surface 

disturbance models developed

• HW and SW ready to go

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December 2021 parabolic flight tests

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

9

The crew

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

10

Experimental hardware

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Lens formation

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

11

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Lens wavefront measurements

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

12

November 2022 parabolic flight tests

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

13

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

14

Ionic liquid mirror example

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

15

December 2023 parabolic flight tests (being postponed to 05/24)

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Liquid dynamics experiment

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

16

Liquid deployment experiment

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UV curing experiment

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

17

Parabolic flights impact

• Parabolic microgravity flights were an invaluable opportunity for us.

• They allowed us to demonstrate the feasibility of creating liquid optical components in a 

microgravity environment — nothing convinces people like a credible real-life demonstration.

• It would have been impossible for us to experiment with gallium alloys in a laboratory neutral 

buoyancy environment, as no suitable immersion liquid exists.

• Similarly, it would have been very challenging to experiment with ionic liquid mirrors in a neutral 

buoyancy environment, as we cannot solidify them for measurements outside the NB tank and 

cannot effectively measure the surface with the wavefront sensor through the immersion liquid.

We are sincerely grateful to Flight Opportunities 

for making these experiments possible. 

Thank you! 

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

18

Suborbital flights?

• Frame deployment validation

• Liquid deployment techniques validation

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NIAC

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Leveraging Suborbital Flight Testing to Advance Fluidic Optics 

in Microgravity

Dr. Edward Balaban

Wanessa Priesmeyer

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

19

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

38 www.nasa.gov

Thank you! 

Flight Opportunities website: 

http://nasa.gov/flightopportunities

Contact us:

NASA-FlightOpportunities@mail.nasa.gov

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