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How ISSpresso Made Coffee in Space
Follow ISSpresso’s water, capsule and drink pouch, then separate the espresso machine from the Space Cup’s capillary-drinking experiment.
Quick Answer
ISSpresso heated and pressurized water, passed it through a beverage capsule and delivered the drink into a connected receiving pouch. The connected path kept the hot liquid contained in microgravity.
On This Page8 Sections
Developed by Argotec with Lavazza and the Italian Space Agency, ISSpresso launched to the International Space Station on April 14, 2015. It brought a familiar capsule-based drink into an environment where gravity could no longer be relied on to move liquid into a cup.
Start with the Brewer’s Actual Task
ISSpresso began with room-temperature water, which the machine heated and pressurized for preparation. Espresso was one option; ASI also lists tea, broth and other hot beverages among its intended uses.
Keep Hot Liquid in a Controlled Path
NASA's May 2015 machine description identifies a beverage capsule and a standard drink bag installed for brewing. Heated, pressurized water passed through the capsule, and the beverage entered the connected bag. Afterward, the capsule and drink bag were removed.
The receiving pouch was therefore part of the brewing arrangement. It provided the contained destination that a cup normally supplies beneath a kitchen or cafe spout.
Read the Numbers Without Mixing Their Meanings
The engineering account by Argotec's Valerio Di Tana and Joshua Hall distinguishes the water supply from the selected drink volumes:
| Part of the system | Reported volume |
|---|---|
| Water supply | 250 mL (8.5 US fl oz) |
| Selected beverage volume | 30 mL (1 US fl oz) |
| Selected beverage volume | 60 mL (2 US fl oz) |
| Selected beverage volume | 120 mL (4.1 US fl oz) |
The supply amount describes water available to the system; the selections describe drink volumes. For ordinary home brewing, our espresso guide explains the workflow and the extraction guide separates dose, beverage concentration and extraction.
Microgravity Changed More Than the Direction of a Pour
Capsule removal needed a mechanical push. ISSpresso used a plunger in its capsule-ejection arrangement to do work that gravity helps with in ground equipment. A used capsule could not simply be expected to fall away as it would in a conventional design.
The pressurizing arrangement also avoided the vibration pump common in ground equipment. Hot-liquid containment, heat, vibration and connections all had to fit the station's requirements. The result was hardware designed around its environment, rather than a domestic machine held in place with a strap.
The Space Cup Was Another Experiment
The open Space Cup addressed drinking, rather than brewing the coffee. NASA's July 1, 2015 station report lists ISSpresso and Capillary Beverage separately. Scott Kelly used Black Kona Coffee for a Capillary Beverage demonstration recorded with high-definition video.
The cup used surface tension, wetting and container geometry to guide liquid toward the drinking edge, as the experiment researchers described in 2015. The cup design's tapering interior corner provides a route toward the lip. As liquid is removed there, more moves into that region. The shape helps put a sip where the drinker needs it without the familiar downward pool at the bottom of a mug.
Keep the Human Story and Engineering Story Together
ASI included the comfort of a familiar hot beverage in the rationale for ISSpresso.
A personal note: The detail I find most useful in the ISSpresso story is the container. It makes me separate three ordinary actions that are easy to combine in my head: making a drink, holding it and getting it to the mouth. Following those jobs gives the engineering a clearer shape. I am especially interested in the small assumptions gravity lets a kitchen design make. A pouch or a specially shaped cup brings one of those assumptions into view. For me, that is the appeal of space coffee: a familiar comfort makes an unfamiliar design problem easier to understand.
Sources
- Italian Space Agency: ISSpresso
- NASA: ISSpresso Machine, May 5, 2015
- Di Tana and Hall (2015): ISSpresso Development and Operations, Journal of Space Safety Engineering 2(1), 39–44
- NASA: ISS Daily Summary Report, July 1, 2015
- NASA/Scott Kelly, ISS043E160084, May 3, 2015: full photograph and ISSpresso control-panel detail
- Wollman et al. (2015), Drinking in Space: The Capillary Beverage Experiment, APS Division of Fluid Dynamics
- IRPI, Capillary beverage cup, US9962024B2, original patent specification