ABSTRACT
The investigations in fluid physics aim at predicting the new behavior of fluids in space and explaining intriguing observations. Fluid behavior is actually markedly different in the space environment than on Earth. Forces, as capillary forces, which are usually small or negligible and are generally ignored on Earth, become dominant and lead to unexpected and counterintuitive behavior. Pure fluids, binary liquids or polymer blends all belong to the same universality class as the Ising system for the ferromagnetism transition. Fluids like oxygen and hydrogen are also used in space under supercritical conditions because they show up as a homogeneous fluid whatever the spacecraft or satellite accelerations are, including the absence of accelerations, and in whatever way the gravity vector is oriented.
