Indonesian Researchers to Study Lunar Soil Mimics in German Microgravity Lab

A research team from Indonesia's Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has been selected for the tenth round of the Fellowship Programme for Drop Tower Experiment Series (DropTES). This selection grants the team access to specialized microgravity facilities in Germany to conduct critical planetary science research.

The UGM team will utilize the Bremen Drop Tower and the GraviTower Bremen Pro to study the movement and redistribution of partially wet silica sand when subjected to controlled shaking in a microgravity environment. The program is a joint implementation by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen, with additional support from the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

Bridging the Space Capability Gap

DropTES serves as a core component of UNOOSA's "Access to Space for All" initiative. The program provides students and researchers from nations with emerging space capabilities access to high-quality, ground-based microgravity infrastructure. By removing financial and technical barriers, the initiative builds global technical capacity and ensures scientific opportunity is not limited by geography.

Since 2014, the initiative has enabled space experiments from a diverse group of nations, including Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Italy, Jordan, Poland, Romania, and Venezuela. The program remains essential to closing the gap between universal scientific talent and uneven access to opportunity.

Implications for Deep-Space Exploration

This research is vital for the future of interplanetary infrastructure. By investigating how moist granular materials—which mimic the properties of lunar and Martian soil—behave in microgravity, the UGM team is providing data essential for the next generation of space hardware. Specifically, the findings will inform the development of robotic excavation, sample-handling, and material-transport systems.

Analyzing these material behaviors under microgravity conditions addresses a primary challenge for future exploration. For Indonesia, the selection represents a major advancement in domestic space science capabilities and a contribution to the global effort to enable human and robotic operations on other planetary bodies.

Next Steps for the UGM Team

The team will now execute their experiments at the Bremen facilities. The results of their study on silica sand redistribution will be integrated into the broader body of knowledge used by space agencies to design more resilient robotic systems for deep-space missions. These findings are expected to translate into specific engineering requirements for future lunar and Martian landers, ensuring that robotic systems can effectively handle the unpredictable nature of extraterrestrial regolith.