Thailand Innovative G-force Varied Emulsification Research for Space Exploration
Built in Thailand. Bound for the International Space Station. Designed to Change Medicine.
This payload is designed to investigate how complex fluids behave in microgravity. It is the first of its kind to study Total Parenteral Nutrition in space. It is a small cube, built by Thai researchers and engineers, preparing to operate aboard the International Space Station.
Studying Total Parenteral Nutrition on Low Earth Orbit
Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) is a life-saving solution for patients who cannot use their gastrointestinal system, yet it still relies on a “One-Size-Fits-All” approach rather than true Personalized Medicine. The limitation is not just about selecting nutrients, but understanding how they behave as complex systems.
In practice, TPN depends on stable multi-phase emulsions of lipids, water, and biomolecules. Their behavior—droplet size, coalescence, and phase separation—directly affects dosing accuracy and safety, with instability posing risks such as fat embolism or nutrient degradation.
studying these systems on Earth is fundamentally limited by physics. Gravity is not just another variable, it is a dominant force that drives sedimentation, buoyancy-driven separation, and convection. These effects mask microscale behaviors governed by surface tension and diffusion.
Microgravity aboard the International Space Station acts as a “physics sandbox,” allowing us to isolate fundamental mechanisms of buoyancy and fluid physics. This enables direct observation which are phenomena that are otherwise inaccessible on Earth.
Phase 1 / Short-Duration Flights
The first phase involved short-duration microgravity flights, providing initial insights into fluid distribution in the absence of gravity-driven separation. However, less than a minute of microgravity limited the ability to study time evolution or steady-state behavior.
Phase 2 / Long-Duration ISS Studies
The second phase advances to long-duration experiments aboard the ISS, enabling precise, repeatable observation of temporal dynamics and equilibrium states, and allowing systematic experimental design.
The goal is not simply to mix fluids in space, but to build datasets and models of nutrient systems in microgravity that can be translated into real medical applications like TPN. This shifts the focus from demonstration to understanding the underlying physics of how these fluids behave.
Short Term
Insights from this project can improve TPN formulations on Earth, especially for patient-specific nutrition. For example, reducing emulsifier dependency can increase formulation flexibility and better support personalized medicine.
Medium Term
This knowledge informs food and fluid system design for long-duration space missions. In space, formulations must remain stable over time, resist phase separation, be storable, and flow properly without gravity, requiring fluid delivery systems built for microgravity behavior.
Long Term
These advances contribute to space medicine, including drug mixing in microgravity, nutritional delivery, surgery that requires precise fluid control without gravity, and preventive care such as fluid balance management and long-term health optimization for multi-planetary species.
TIGERS-X is an active communication payload designed to operate with direct telemetry and telecommand between orbit and Earth. Researchers can monitor and control the experiment in near real time without astronaut intervention.
This changes the payload from something simply sent to space into something operated in space.
Columbus Module
The payload communicates through the International Space Station’s onboard TCP/IP network, linked through Space Applications Services’ ground station in Zaventem, Belgium, and connected to the Bangkok mission control team through a secure internet connection.
This allows the team to receive telemetry and send telecommands to the International Space Station in near real time.
The design of the experiment cube is compact but powerful. It is designed to be lightweight and small, but powerful enough to perform the experiment. It is designed to be easy to integrate and test, and to be easy to operate in space.
TIGERS-X represents a full-stack effort developed in Thailand, from system design and hardware integration to testing and mission operations. Using local resources and facilities, the team translated research experience into a flight-ready payload, proving that Thailand can deliver complex space systems end to end.
From idea to orbit and back to Earth — the operational beats of TIGERS-X.
The project was initiated following KEETA’s heritage after participating in NASA’s Space Food Challenge project.
The team passed PDR and CDR and began developing the payload to meet scientific objectives.
The experiment was tested on a Zero-G flight as a proof of concept.
The experiment cube was designed, built, and tested in Thailand using local resources.
The payload was delivered and tested at Space Applications Services in Belgium, with final preparations after handover to ESA and NASA.
The payload will launch to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX Dragon CRS-34 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The payload will be installed in the Columbus module and transmit recorded experiment video to the ground station.
The experiment cube will return to Earth with CRS-34 before the end of 2026.
The most important output of TIGERS-X is not only the hardware or the experiment data. It is the knowledge that remains.
Through a comprehensive digital archive and operational knowledge transfer, every lesson learned from design, integration, testing, launch preparation, and mission operation is documented. The goal is to build space heritage so future generations of Thai space engineers will never have to start from zero again.
The next generation of Thai space engineers will not start from zero again.
TIGERS-X is not just a payload. It is a transition point.
From isolated experiments to accumulated capability.
From medical research to the future of experiments beyond Earth.
Design by Nattanon Dungsunenarn
Design and Communication Partner
Spaceth.co
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