Turin. There is no life in space without espresso. Coffee is the protagonist of the VITA (Vitality, Innovation, Technology, Ability) mission that brought Paolo Nespoli and his teammates aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts were welcomed with a 100% Italian product: the innovative ISSpresso capsule machine, installed in Node 1 of the Space Station realised by Argotec and Lavazza – in a public-private partnership with the Italian Space Agency ( ASI) – that on 3 May, 2015, during the ‘Futura’ mission, permitted Samantha Cristoforetti to drink the first espresso coffee in microgravity. The partnership with the ASI, which co-ordinated the experiment, made it possible to transport it to the International Space Station, and subsequently through a negotiation with NASA, the Agency managed to keep the ISSpresso permanently in orbit. A passing of the torch between the astronauts of the European Space Agency, AstroSamantha and Paolo Nespoli for the third flight among the stars, which over the last few months has been able to learn and further explore all the secrets of the ISSpresso machine, from technical to more practical applications in the Argotec research and development laboratories in Turin.
