Romanian space mission aboard International Space Station

The Romanian InSpace Engineering (RISE) company will launch, at the beginning of November, the Drop Coal mission to the International Space Station, a scientific experiment developed entirely in Romania, within a project financed by the European Space Agency (ESA).According to a company's press release, the launch is expected between November 4-6 from the NASA Kennedy Space Center, aboard the Dragon cargo capsule within the CRS-31 mission."DropCoal was designed to study the coalescence and mixing of liquids during a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Specifically, during an experiment, the device generates two droplets of different substances, filming with an ultra-fast camera how they come together and mixes in microgravity. DropCoal was designed to run 560 such experiments throughout the mission," the release reads.The findings resulting from this experiment are of particular importance for space exploration, as they will help scientists improve the way of administering medicine to astronauts or the fuel supply of various spacecraft.The DropCoal project marks several firsts: the first payload designed and manufactured entirely in Romania that will arrive on board the International Space Station, Romanian InSpace Engineering SRL being the first entity in Romania to develop an experiment validated by the safety commissions of ESA and NASA for use on board the ISS (manned flight).Also, DropCoal represents the first payload that is fully tested for flight in Romania through partnerships with different research institutes and national companies."The development and preparation for the launch of the DropCoal experiment gave us the chance to coagulate at the company level both a team of experts from complementary fields who can solve complex technological problems, as well as the logistical basis for the implementation of large-scale projects in the space field", said Mugurel Balan, project manager and co-founder of Romanian InSpace Engineering (RISE).The RISE company has been operating in the field of aerospace engineering since 2017 and has many projects in the field of space technology developed for the European Space Agency and the Romanian Space Agency. The company has successfully completed or is in various stages of implementation many other projects in the space field from precise positioning systems in orbit to terrestrial systems for monitoring GNSS interference. (Photohttps://www.facebook.com/RomanianInSpaceEngineering/)