How do astronauts drink a cup of hot soy milk?

In order to allow astronauts performing long-term space missions to eat nutritious hot meals and drink a cup of hot soy milk, the Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Center has cooperated with enterprises to jointly develop, introduce new concepts and ideas, and explore ways to make astronauts live healthier in space.

The three astronauts of Shenzhou 13 are about to successfully complete their mission and return to the ground

Li Gong is the deputy chief designer of the Space Kitchen Project Department of Joyoung Co.

Eating and drinking well in space is not easy

In the long-term space life, subject to the special environment of the space station, there are strict regulations on the drinking water of astronauts

From the outside, "Space Soy Milk" is more like a fully sealed bag of vegetable and fruit puree

Behind the launch of "Space Soymilk" is a three-in-one technology that meets "Breaking Level 2, Space Food Chemical Pollution Requirements and Sensory Evaluation Level A"

If you want to drink soy milk, you must have water, and in the space environment, the water temperature control should be precise and the water speed control should be more stable

In the space station, astronauts' drinking and eating are not only affected by the space environment, but also to avoid microbial contamination

Previously, the "Development, Promotion and Application of Antibacterial Materials in Manned Spacecraft Cabin" project led by the functional polymer material team of Southwest Jiaotong University won the first prize of Sichuan Science and Technology Progress Award in 2020

Achieving uniform heating of "space food"

Fish-flavored shredded pork, Kung Pao chicken, assorted fried rice, curry fried rice, chicken nuggets with mushrooms, shredded pork with pickled vegetables, beef fillet with black pepper, braised pork, fried rice with winter bamboo shoots and ham.

According to reports, compared to the ground, the floating of food in a weightless state will affect the uniform heating of the food; at the same time, heating in space requires packaging, and the challenge is the thermal barrier of the packaging material of the packaged food and the heating uniformity of the food problem

Li Gong introduced that around the characteristics of space food and the weightless environment in space, they proposed a new design concept for hot air heating device, and used methods and tools such as mathematical modeling, mechanics and fluid simulation to continuously optimize the design, and finally completed the hot air heating device.

　　"Recently, the astronauts reported that the related equipment developed by Joyoung has a good on-orbit application experience, which inspires us

　　As one of the earliest companies involved in the development of the national manned spaceflight project, Joyoung undertook the development of the space kitchen project as early as 2014

　　(Source: Science and Technology Daily)

"China Food News" (April 06, 2022 Edition 04)

　　(Editor-in-charge: Gao Na)