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Next spring, a selec­tion of Italian extra vir­gin olive oils will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).

The oils will be brought to the ISS, located about 400 kilo­me­ters above Earth’s sur­face, by Italian astro­naut Samantha Cristoforetti, the com­man­der of the mis­sion.

Supporters of the ini­tia­tive hope to study how the prod­uct holds up in space and pro­mote olive oil cul­ture.

The Italian Space Agency con­firmed that the astro­nauts would con­sume the extra vir­gin olive oils with their meals. One of the oils will be used to study the impact of being in space on olive oil qual­ity.

High doses of radi­a­tion (both cos­mic and solar) in space could mod­ify some ele­ments of the oil. At the same time, the lack of grav­ity, also called a micro-grav­ity envi­ron­ment, might also cause the oils to coa­lesce and aggre­gate.

As part of her small stash of food that astro­nauts are allowed to bring with them to the ISS to con­tribute to their stan­dard mis­sion diet, Cristoforetti chose three mono­va­ri­etal extra vir­gin olive oils, made from the tra­di­tional Italian cul­ti­vars: Frantoio, Bosana and Biancolilla.

Additionally, Unaprol, the Italian olive pro­duc­ers’ con­sor­tium and one of the project part­ners, said four sep­a­rate mono­va­ri­etal extra vir­gin olive oils would be offered to other astro­nauts with spe­cific meals.

A Coratina is meant to enhance meals with a robust fla­vor, while the Moraiolo was cho­sen for use with meat. The Itrana mono­va­ri­etal will be used for their sal­ads and Carolea for fish. Each extra vir­gin olive oil con­tainer will be labeled with its best food pair­ings.

“The extra vir­gin olive oils that will be sent to the ISS are of the high­est qual­ity, com­ing from dif­fer­ent regions of Italy,” Nicola di Noia, Unaprol’s gen­eral direc­tor, told Olive Oil Times.

“The seven extra vir­gin olive oils, three des­tined to the bonus food and four to astro­naut’s meals, have been cho­sen among tens of tested sam­ples because of their chem­i­cal-phys­i­cal and organolep­tic char­ac­ter­is­tics,” he added.

Di Noia said that monocul­ti­var extra vir­gin olive oils were selected over blends to demon­strate the organolep­tic qual­i­ties of dif­fer­ent olive vari­eties, all of which are char­ac­ter­ized by a ​“very high nat­ural antiox­i­dant pro­file.”

According to the Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economy Analysis (CREA), which is among the part­ners in the project, the 50-mil­li­liter plas­tic bot­tles used for stor­ing the extra vir­gin olive oils will be the same con­tain­ers used on the ISS for other foods.

“The con­tain­ers will also be used to store the extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ples that have been selected to be the focus of the spe­cific sci­en­tific exper­i­ment that will be car­ried on the International Space Station,” Enzo Perri, the direc­tor of the CREA research cen­ter for olives, fruit and cit­rus crops, told Olive Oil Times.

The exper­i­ment will allow researchers to under­stand how olive oil con­tents and pro­file might change in space. Some extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ples will be brought back to Earth after six months, 12 months and 18 months on the ISS.

“We will use the same food con­tain­ers used for all other foods on the ISS because that will allow us to estab­lish changes that occurred in nor­mal oper­at­ing con­di­tions,” Perri said.

Back on Earth, the inter­na­tional sci­en­tific team will study the chem­i­cal pro­files of each extra vir­gin olive oil sam­ple to estab­lish pos­si­ble changes that took place in space, Perri said. The oils will also be tasted to deter­mine how their qual­ity was impacted by the time spent in space.

Cristoforetti is a strong sup­porter of a bal­anced diet. Sharing her expe­ri­ence with food on the ISS in 2015, she explained how rel­e­vant it is to con­sume the best fats in her diet. She specif­i­cally praised avo­cado, mack­erel and extra vir­gin olive oil.

“I would not for­get to bring olive oil with me, which also gives fla­vor to any­thing, even to the rehy­drated sal­ads that we eat up here,” she said.

The Italian Space Agency empha­sized the impor­tance of the prin­ci­ples behind a nutri­tional diet.

“Those are basic prin­ci­ples in space, where the cor­rect food intake is a major issue for health aboard the ISS,” the agency said. ​“Many sci­en­tific papers have proved the health ben­e­fits of extra vir­gin olive oil con­sump­tion.”

“The extra vir­gin olive oils selected by Coldiretti and Unaprol all share a high antiox­i­dant pro­file which is specif­i­cally rel­e­vant for those who are fac­ing psy­chophys­i­cal intense stress­ing con­di­tions, such as astro­nauts,” the agency added.

Samantha Cristoforetti is sched­uled to arrive on the ISS on April 15, 2022, in a SpaceX Dragon cap­sule.

• Italian Space Agency