NASA Cracked the Zero-G Espresso Problem

Just over a year ago, aboard the International Space Station 200 miles above earth, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti slid a plastic capsule into a machine about the size and shape of a home safe. She opened a small plexiglass door, attached a pouch of water to an intake valve, and snapped on a smaller, empty plastic bag. Then she closed the door, turned the machine on, and waited for her espresso.

We long ago solved the problem of making coffee on earth. But building an espresso machine for the space station turned out to be a much bigger challenge than the Italian engineering firm Argotec expected when it took on the project. A team of 11 engineers—7 of them working full time—spent a year and a half coming up with a brewing process that could work in microgravity and meet NASA’s rigorous safety standards. “I don’t think any of us realized that every component would have to be modified,” says Joshua Hall, an engineer who worked on the project, named ISSpresso.