European Space Agency

Our Design History
|2001|

RFR & Food Packages. The Crew Refrigerator/Freezer was designed to deliver with the shuttle ”fresh food” to the astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS). The project was developed for the European Space Agency by DASA (now Airbus Defence and Space), Ferrari Engineering and No Picnic Industrial Design. The task included design ideation, functional studies and production of a prototype subjected to qualification tests. After successful testing, the design was approved for the manufacturing of the flight models and delivered to NASA Johnson Space Center for training of the crew. Following the fatal accident of the Columbia Space Shuttle and the later cancellation of the program, it was decided to go back to the standard food supply for the crew on board. The spinoff of the RFR design resulted in the manufacturing of smaller freezers that are used to carry biological samples to and from the Space Station.
For No Picnic it has been a fantastic journey to be part of this complex and interesting task, working in a space project with subjects such as microgravity, g-forces and human factors for a complete different environment.
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Photos: Camilo Matiz