Galactic cookie: the international space station welcomes its first oven to cook

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ISS astronauts recently baked cookies on board the space station in a special oven. It does not seem like anything, but this first culinary constitutes a real giant step for the future of the space conquest.

The recent tweet by North American astronaut Christina Hammock Koch over a weightless cookie will not become as famous as the photo of Buzz Aldrin's boot imprint on lunar ground taken in 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission. However, this photograph represents an important advance in the field of space conquest which will undoubtedly have numerous repercussions on future missions and colonization. Indeed, for the first time in human history, we were able to cook food in space at a temperature of around 180 ° C.

Indeed, if the International Space Station (ISS) has household appliances allowing to heat up to 90 ° C (for safety reasons and energy available in orbit), this temperature does not allow to consider making the cook serenely by varying the ingredients and methods of cooking, therefore the pleasures. However, the quality and variety of the food available may play a major role in the well-being of astronauts sent to Mars in the coming decades or perhaps even further.

Obviously, it is not yet a question of realizing a royal hare while contemplating our blue planet 400 km away. Indeed, the Zero G Kitchen Space Oven (oven of zero gravity space in the language of Thomas Pesquet) is still in its infancy. With an overall volume that is quite impressive, the muffle itself takes on a cylindrical shape and does not exceed 2 l: enough for one cookie at a time! Note that the maximum temperature inside only reaches 177 ° C (250 ° C minimum for classic models). The space oven also has a cooling system on the side to lower the temperature of the dishes quickly.

However, to manage to bake a simple cookie, it was necessary that the teams of the company Zero G Kitchen (financed by the chain of hotel establishments Hilton which thus ensures a good publicity) manage to compensate for the effects of the microgravity on the hot air and its circulation in the enclosure. Indeed, a cooking on Earth uses gravity since the hot air rises while the cold air goes down: we speak of convection. This phenomenon is inevitably attenuated in orbit. It was therefore necessary to place the heating elements (very simple resistances, similar to those used in toasters) very precisely so that the heat envelops the food evenly, what a simple fan (like that found in built-in convection ovens) might not have been successful.

Another problem of drastically reduced gravity, the food could have flown in the muffle of the oven freely, and one can easily imagine all the problems that this would cause. To avoid this, the engineers designed transparent silicone pockets in which to insert the ingredients; it only remains to plug them into rails like those of conventional ovens. Another significant advantage of this system is that it prevents crumbs and other food residue from being spread around the station.

In the case of cookies (and any other preparation based on dough), the behavior of yeast in microgravity is still little known. We know that on Earth, the base of the preparation remains flat and the top swells. But there is nothing to confirm that the same phenomenon will occur in space, or that the “push” will also take place in all directions. Cylinder, rugby ball, sphere…: the breads and other cakes could take any shape.

Luca Parmitano, the astronaut in charge of the Cookie mission, had to cook several times to reach a satisfactory result. According to him, the first cakes were too pasty, but the last were baked to perfection, even containing melted chocolate chips. He also highlighted the ease of use of the Zero G Kitchen Space Oven. Unfortunately for him, he could not taste his achievements. The cookies were sealed and kept cool while awaiting their return to Earth to undergo various tests.

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