Astronauts about to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on-board the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft be taking a new zero-gravity coffee machine with them.
The Expedition 42/43 crew members Terry Virts of Nasa, Anton Shkaplerov from the Russian Federal Space Agency and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency are travelling to the ISS as part of a five-and-half month mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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Called ISSpresso, the 20kg coffee machine will provide astronauts in the space with espresso coffee.
The machine is developed by Italian coffee maker Lavazza in partnership with engineering firm Argotec. It is said to be the first capsule-based espresso system to work in space.
Lavazza and Argotec earlier said that Cristoforetti ‘will be not only the first female astronaut from Italy to go into space, but also the very first astronaut in the history of the conquest of space to savour an authentic Italian espresso in orbit’.
Argotec director general David Avino was quoted by AFP as saying: "ISSpresso is a technological achievement that conforms to the technical requirements and ultra-strict security measures imposed on us by the Italian space agency."
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By GlobalDataDuring the development of ISSpresso, engineers have worked to tackle principles of physics and fluid dynamics such as handling liquids at high- pressure and temperature in a space environment.
A plastic tube that carries water inside an espresso machine is replaced with a steel equivalent, to withstand pressure of more than 400bar.
Virts, Shkaplerov and Cristoforetti will return to Earth in March 2015 with American astronaut Barry Wilmore and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova.
Image: ISSpresso will provide astronauts in the space with espresso coffee. Photo: courtesy of Lavazza.
