The International Space Station has received the first space refrigerator, set to revolutionise the dining experience for astronauts in orbit. The new refrigeration system comes thanks to the work done at the University of Colorado, Boulder and has been dubbed the Freezer Refrigerator Incubator Device for Galley and Experimentation (aka the FRIDGE).
Read: Samsung Bixby is finally starting to die a quiet death
Astronauts have had to endure drinking dinner out of a pouch or eating freeze dried ice cream. Foods that go to space need a multi-year shelf stability, which fresh foods naturally doesn’t have.
The new space refrigerators were designed by BioServe Space Technologies at UCB and are small and easy to transport to the ISS. According to Robby Aaron, one of the aerospace engineering students that works on the project, “there are no rotating parts, no fans, which is really big for reliability. A normal fridge on Earth is also hot in the back. We can’t have that in space. Warm air doesn’t rise in microgravity; it stays stationary and can cause things to overheat, so you must get rid of heat some other way. ISS has a water-cooling system we’ll be tapped into to directly dump the waste heat and keep the system cool.”
Eight units of the FRIDGE has been employed by NASA so far. Six units are already in use on the International Space Station and being utilized in chilling temperature-sensitive test materials. The two that have just arrived aboard the Cygnus NG-14 robotic resupply craft will be reserved for food. It will stock both perishable meals that come aboard via resupply craft in the future, but also fresh produce produced by the station’s hydroponic garden. It will also be used to store medicine.
As is the case with many technologies that are developed due to space exploration, it could be used to build a commercially available refrigerator – one that lasts even longer than current ones and regulates temperature more efficiency.
