Read it here!

The study led by C. Peromingo, P. Salgado Sánchez, D. Gligor, A. Bello, and J. Rodríguez, published in Physics of Fluids (2023), addresses innovative methods to reduce sloshing in microgravity environments. Simulations were conducted to identify the optimal shape, number, and arrangement of baffles in a rectangular tank. Additionally, temperature modulation was introduced to counteract the original sloshing motion.

Findings: The findings demonstrated that the ideal combination of baffles and temperature modulation reduced sloshing decay time by over 80%. This strategy showed significant potential to enhance liquid stability in microgravity environments.

Applications and Significance: The developed methods have potential applications across various domains, from propulsion systems and water storage in space missions to terrestrial uses, including liquid transport in trucks, manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, and offshore oil extraction plants.

Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of innovative techniques in controlling sloshing in microgravity, underscoring their relevance not only in space missions but also in numerous terrestrial systems.

Cross-shaped baffles

You can also read here the AIP article.

La entrada Slowing sloshing in space: Exploring innovative techniques aparece primero en E-USOC.

In her own words “[…] I think it´s really incredible science so I’m looking forward to DCMIX team […] thank you guys I hope you get some cool results. […]“

Wilco! Thanks to you Kate, you are indeed our rock star!

Source: NASA

– [Kate Rubins] Copy Houston…And Hunstville Station on Space to Ground 2 for SODI.

– [Paycom] With you on 2, Kate.

– [Kate Rubins] I just wanted to let you know the photos are available for downlink on SSC20 and Andria, you are an absolute rock star! Thank you for being a fantastic PAYCOM, and getting us through a complex and very cool set up today and I just want to take a moment to say thank you to the all of the folks at Hunstville that are doing operations, the SODI team, the MSG team. You guys are really impressive with what you’re able to do with these procedures. It’s really smooth getting the stuff in, even when we hit a little snag we figure it out quickly, and I think it´s really incredible science so I’m looking forward to the DCMIX team. I’m not exactly an expert on tripartite hydrocarbon mixtures but, it’s very cool. I’ve actually been reading up on it because it’s so interesting. I didn’t know a lot about thermodiffusion, on how microgravity affects thermodynamic modelling, but it´s really a fascinating example of the kind of variety of science we have up here so thank you guys, I hope you get some cool results. And also to Munich, to Uwe. Thank you very much for the training at EAC. I still remember that class and that helped me out a lot with the big picture today. So I appreciate it, to all those folks.

– [Paycom] Thanks Kate, Hunstville copies all and will pass on all those good words, and considering we started the activity with a couple of screws loose, I think we did pretty well.

– [Kate Rubins] I was saying the same thing, so thank you so much again!

La entrada SODI-DCMIX: happy to see you again! aparece primero en E-USOC.

“Our work has always been recognized by European Space Agency and scientific teams with whom we have worked, but we did not expect this great institutional recognition, because many people work around the International Space Station and it is very difficult be nominated and awarded “. With these words, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Professor and E-USOC director, Ana Laverón, has expressed their surprise for receiving one of the awards.

On behalf of E-USOC team, two of its members have attended the third edition of the ESA ISS Awards, held on 26 March in ESTEC’s Erasmus Centre (Netherlands).They have come as nominees in Awards (2013) for the Increment 31/32.

The reasons for the nomination have been that Spanish USOC has provided an outstanding operational support throughout the execution of the GEOFLOW-2 experiment. For several months, the team led by Dr. Ana Laveron has provided continuous support to the GEOFLOW science team, always with a positive attitude. The E-USOC has also gained significant experience in the operational support of several hardware malfunctions / anomalies, ensuring valuable operational data gathering to support the work of the engineering community.

The award was introduced by astronaut André Kuipers, who was at the ISS for the increment 31/32, a symbol of the union between the different people that make space research. The trophy itself is a piece of ESA’s history – it is a bronze casting of astronaut Hans Schlegel’s Extra Vehicular Activity glove, used for the installation of the Columbus module on the Space Station in 2008. It symbolizes the handshake of trust between the crew and those that made the missions a success.

Indeed, among those on earth, is the Operations Center and Spanish User Support, located on Technical University of Madrid Campus of International Excellence Montegancedo. Ana Laverón, in charge of E-USOC, argues:

“This award has been the best recognition of the efforts that we have been devoted to obtain the best possible science from the experiments delegated to us by the European Space Agency.”

E-USOC has recently finished the operations on Geoflow-2B experiment, which obtained experimental and essential results to validate numerical models on the flow and composition of the Earth’s core and it is preparing the next, DCMIX-2, an experiment for study ternary diffusion in fluids. They will operate it during two or three months after its arrival at the ISS.

Expertise, professionalism and dedication were recognized in the third ISS Award ceremony. The Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations, Thomas Reiter, called the event “a unique opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the many excellent colleagues who with their expertise and through their personal dedication have contributed to successful missions.” Cooperation between all people involved in each mission is the key to its proper functioning and therefore they defined themselves as “a big family”, she said.

Source: ESA

La entrada E-USOC awarded by the European Space Agency aparece primero en E-USOC.

Fuente: E-USOC

ESA has invited schoolchildren aged between 12 -14 years to join the Greenhouse in Space project. This experiment, carried out by the Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, consists of growing flowering plants inside two separate small greenshouses set up in the Columbus laboratory and follows their germination over a two-month period. Students on the ground will make the observations of the plants in their own mini greenhouse and compare the results with Paolo’s space experiment, by means of both recorded and live-link activity for educational events.

The 5th year students from CEIP Luis Buñuel, a bilingual school located in the town of Alcobendas, have joined to conduct this experiment and have yet requested their mini greenhouse kit. On the 17th of February they came to our premises to follow a live event with real time video from the International Space Station, in which the astronaut watered the seeds of the space greenhouse for the first time.

The event was also followed by many students taking part in this exciting educational initiative from different schools all over Europe. They asked interesting questions to the astronaut like ‘how oxygen is generated on the ISS’ or ‘how many times do they have day and night at the ISS’ amongst others. The most stunning moment for our young science enthusiast visitors was Paolo’s demonstration about microgravity, when he made a big water drop to float in front of the camera before ending up in his mouth.

Click on this link to watch the streaming video for this activity.

Growing plants in space will be crucial for the astronauts of the future. When flying to Mars or even further, it will be necessary to produce fresh food onboard and become partially self-sufficient. Setting up greenhouses on the Moon, Mars or other planetary bodies will also be an important part of future exploration missions.

Greenhouses also provide oxygen and bring some life to the bleakness of space. Caring for plants is a good way to maintain memories of Earth and an enjoyable way to pass time during the long and possibly boring interplanetary cruise.

Ext. Source: ESA news – A greenhouse in space

MagISStra is the third six-month stay by a European astronaut on the Station, a fascinating mission pursuing the ISS triple goal: bringing the benefits of space science, technology and education from space back to Earth.

Nespoli will contribute to the scientific exploitation of Europe’s Columbus laboratory by carrying out an intensive programme of experiments, ranging from radiation monitoring to visual perception studies, which it is worth mentioning ESA’s novel 3D camera that will show unprecedented images of the ISS.

Ext. Source: ESA MagISStra Press Kit (pdf 5.95 MB)

La entrada Students from the school Luis Buñuel visit E-USOC to follow a live event: ‘Greenhouse in Space’ aparece primero en E-USOC.

Source: NASA

Today, astronaut Bob successfully achieved the SODI-IVIDIL cell array and flash disk exchange activity. After the comissioning, some pictures were taken to check that everything was nominal on the experiment and the optics.

E-USOC team is ready to support operations with this new cell array, whose beginning is scheduled on December 1st. So far, we’re very pleased about the evolution of these operations, emphasizing the fantastic cooperation with the scientific team and our NASA partners.

We’d like to take this opportunity to comment that UPM has published a new article about our latest experiments.

La entrada SODI IVIDIL Operations: 2nd Cell Array Installed aparece primero en E-USOC.