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Cubesats are popular for low-cost experiments that can be automated, and don't require the products to be returned to Earth for analysis.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CubeSatIf the experiments are larger, require manual interaction or require the end-products to be returned to Earth, the ISS is probably the main vehicle at present.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_research_on_the_International_Space_StationThe ultimate in microgravity experimentation was the LISA Pathfinder satellite.- It was a technology trial, leading up to a future mission to detect gravitational waves in space- They needed the test masses to be free floating with no external effects - even the acceleration due to an electrical charge delivered by a cosmic ray would disrupt the experiment.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_Pathfinder#Mission
Suborbital flight does provide a few minutes of microgravity, while using far less fuel than launching into a full orbit.See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sounding_rocketEven more economical is the "vomit comet", a jet airplane that flies a parabolic path* to provide around 30 seconds of microgravity - but they can get several cycles of 30s in a flight lasting a few hours.See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft*It would be a parabola if the Earth had infinite radiusIt is actually a segment of an ellipse, with the Earth's core as one of the foci