Space Station gets its first espresso machine – the ISSpresso

The Italian Space Agency, Italian engineering company Argotec, and coffee company Lavazza have collaborated to bring cafe-style coffee to space, with a microwave-size capsule-based espresso coffee maker for the International Space Station – dubbed the ISSpresso

Argotec’s David Avino describes the machine as “a food laboratory” that might eventually also produce gourmet soups in micro-gravity.

Making coffee in space is difficult, as coffee from an Earth-based machine would form droplets and float away rather than drip into the cup.

The ISSpresso takes water from a pouch and pumps it round the machine through a capsule of coffee and into another pouch which the astronauts can drink from using a straw.

Argotec have been working on the design since 2012, according to The Guardian, after Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano, complained that he missed his coffee on the Space Station.

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