The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
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Team looking into frying potatoes oil in microgravity in front of the experiment hardware on a parabolic flight. From left to right: Dr. J. Lioumbas, Dr. S. Evgenidis, Prof. T. Karapanatsios, T. Tsilipiras.
To study how microgravity influences cooking techniques such as frying, a novel experimental carousel-type apparatus was designed to fly and be safe. The experiments were conducted on two ESA parabolic flight campaigns, whereby an aircraft flies in repeated arcs to recreate brief moments of weightlessness.
The experiment captured the frying process with a high-speed, high-resolution camera to capture the bubble dynamics such as growth rate, size and distribution, as well as the escape velocity from the potato, the bubbles’ speed and direction of travel in the oil. The experiment measured the temperature of the boiling oil as well as temperatures inside the potato – three levels deep.
The experiment hardware is automated and closed for safety. It maintains a constant pressure inside the frying chamber to avoid leaks, to prevent the oil from sloshing around and to use less energy to heat the oil.