Coffee and the ISSpresso machine story

You’ve probably watched a video of an astronaut squeezing a blob of coffee from a foil pouch and thought, “That looks miserable.” You were right. For decades, drinking coffee in space meant rehydrating a freeze-dried powder or sucking lukewarm instant sludge through a straw. It worked, but it wasn’t coffee. It was survival caffeine. Then, in 2015, Italian aerospace company Argotec and coffee giant Lavazza strapped a real espresso machine to a rocket and sent it to the International Space Station. The ISSpresso machine didn’t just improve morale. It changed how we think about food and drink delivery in zero gravity.

Before the ISSpresso, the gear for hot drinks in space was embarrassingly low-tech. Astronauts used a device called the “Space Cup,” which relied on surface tension to hold liquid in a plastic container shaped like a carafe. It worked for water and juice, but coffee was always a compromise. The real problem was pressure. Espresso requires hot water forced through finely ground coffee at around nine bars of pressure. In a microgravity environment, that pressure doesn’t behave the same way. Boiling water won’t form bubbles that rise; they just expand and float. Steam doesn’t escape upward. And any liquid you heat can flash into a chaotic mist that ruins sensitive electronics and clogs air filters. NASA’s solution for decades was simple: don’t try to make real coffee. Ship freeze-dried instant and call it a day.

The ISSpresso machine solved these problems with rugged, mission-specific engineering. The unit is a 44-pound, steel-reinforced box about the size of a microwave. It uses a sealed, disposable plastic capsule system similar to Lavazza’s ground espresso pods, but the capsule is reinforced to handle 400°F internal temperatures and extreme pressure without rupturing. Inside the machine, a syringe-like water injection system pushes hot water through the capsule at precise pressure, but instead of dripping into a cup, the espresso is captured in a flexible, sealed plastic bag. The astronaut attaches a drinking tube and valve to the bag and sips. No open cups, no floating droplets, no mess. The entire system is designed to be installed inside the station’s EXPRESS rack, a standardized locker-sized chassis that provides power, cooling, and data connectivity. Installation requires about three hours and a screwdriver.

The impact on space nutrition delivery goes beyond coffee. The ISSpresso machine demonstrated that you can deliver a complex, pressurized hot beverage system in a module that weighs less than a carry-on suitcase and fits into existing infrastructure. Before 2015, hot water in space was available only from a dispenser that produces about 86°C water for rehydrating pouches. That temperature is too low for proper extraction of coffee or tea. The ISSpresso heats its own water internally, meaning astronauts can now drink a beverage that is actually hot—around 90°C—and properly extracted. That may sound trivial, but in a closed environment where every sensory detail is flattened by recycled air, fluorescent lights, and constant noise from fans and pumps, a genuinely good cup of coffee or tea is a profound psychological tool.

The same engineering principles used in the ISSpresso machine are now being adapted for future lunar and Martian missions. Argotec has already tested a smaller, lighter prototype called the Skema that can be recharged with water and capsules. The key takeaway is that “space food” no longer means only freeze-dried ice cream and bagged soup. The ISSpresso proved that if you can engineer a system for pressure, heat, and containment, you can deliver real, recognizable terrestrial food and drink in orbit. That matters for long-duration missions. If you’re going to spend three years on a trip to Mars, you don’t want to spend it eating paste and drinking powder. You want a damn espresso.

The ISSpresso machine is still on the ISS. It has brewed hundreds of cups for dozens of astronauts. It has survived years of vibration, radiation, and microgravity without a single failure. It is a piece of gear that looks like a coffee maker but functions like a life support system. And it proves that, in space, the line between comfort and necessity is much thinner than you think.