First Light on Drop Coalescence hardware development

We are excited to share the first successful results of our colleagues developing the hardware for an experiment to be flown on the International Space Station. The video presented today shows a high speed recording of the dynamics of two water droplets coalescence and mixing process. One is a 2 mm diameter water droplet, the other one is a methylene-blue water solution and has about 1 mm diameter. The recording was performed at 7926 frames per second, and the video was slowed down approximately 300 times.
The experiment is meant to contribute to the understanding of fluid dynamics for both ground and space applications, in a wide range of systems from fuel injection to biology and chemical processes.
RISE is the prime contractor tasked with the development and operation of the experimental setup that will be launched in 2024. The science team of the experiment includes researchers from the INFLPR, Technical University of Darmstadt and Carnegie Mellon University. We’d also like to thank AOS Technologies for providing the High Speed camera and Opto Engineering for providing the telecentric lenses for this demonstration.