Romanian Space Mission aboard the ISS

The Romanian InSpace Engineering (RISE) company will launch the Drop Coal mission in November, an innovative experiment, designed entirely in Romania, that will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Dragon cargo capsule, as part of the CRS-31 mission from NASA Kennedy Space Center. This mission, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), will explore the coalescence and mixing of liquids in microgravity conditions.

According to the company: "DropCoal was designed to study the coalescence and mixing of liquids during a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station. More specifically, during an experiment, the device generates two droplets of different substances, filming with an ultrafast camera how they unite and mix in microgravity. DropCoal was designed to run 560 such experiments throughout the entire mission." The findings from this experiment are of particular importance for space exploration, as they will help scientists improve the way astronauts administer drugs or fuel various spacecraft. The DropCoal project marks several firsts: the first payload designed and manufactured entirely in Romania to arrive aboard the International Space Station, Romanian InSpace Engineering SRL being the first entity in Romania to develop an experiment validated by the ESA and NASA safety committees for use aboard the ISS (human-powered flight). DropCoal also represents the first payload that is fully tested for flight in Romania through partnerships with various national research institutes and companies. The team of scientists who proposed the experiment is led by experts from the National Institute for Plasma Laser and Radiation Physics (INFLPR) Romania in collaboration with the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) and Carnegie Mellon University (United States of America). Last but not least, DropCoal will run scientific experiments for 6 months on board the Station, operated from Romania. DropCoal is thus the first complete space mission, from the concept phase to operation and processing of scientific data, developed in Romania as a member state of the European Space Agency (ESA). The project is fully funded by the European Space Agency and aligns with the efforts of the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) to develop the space field in Romania.