Founded in 2016 and now in our ninth year, we set our sights on space. The Space Exploration Initiative has since grown to 50+ graduate students, staff, and faculty and charters an annual ZERO-G parabolic flight. This year's flight flew on May 14, 2025, with 10 researchers and 9 projects! The projects shown below were tested over many microgravity parabolas (including one martian and three lunar parabolas). This mission included participation from several departments at MIT and outside collaborators from across the globe in our mission to democratize access to space; this mission is a core milestone in the schedule of iterative microgravity testing (parabolic flights, suborbital launches, ISS launches) that the Space Exploration Initiative undertakes throughout the year.
The Initiative unites engineers, scientists, artists, and designers to prototype our space future. We hope you explore and enjoy the rich diversity of research perspectives in the projects shown below. Stay tuned for flight results and our research publications!