Introduction

Abstract

In the compensated gravity environment of a spacecraft the hydrostatic pressure decreases to very low values depending on the residual acceleration, and surface tension forces become dominant. The term compensated gravity is used through the text synonymous to the terms reduced gravity, microgravity, low gravity, and zero gravity. The physical meaning is the fact that the body force due to gravity (which always exists in low earth and geostationary orbits) is compensated by another body force due to the acceleration of the system under consideration. The difference between these two accelerations is the residual acceleration.