Spacestation Experiments

Orbital platforms such as space stations and satellites offer access to long-lasting microgravity conditions. Experiment times of hours or even days can be realized. Long duration experiments may be necessary to investigate slowly progressing physical phenomena or processes or to increase the comparability or reproducibility of experiments and results. Therefore, material science experiments on orbital platforms focus on, but are not limited to, the investigation of mass and heat transport, nucleation and solidification, interfacial phenomena and multiphase flows. Compared to satellites, where the challenge is to carry out the experiments fully automatically, space stations allow interaction with astronauts, which, however, entails strict requirements for the safety design of the experiments.