{"id":8312,"date":"2016-04-06T09:05:20","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T09:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=8312"},"modified":"2016-04-06T09:05:20","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T09:05:20","slug":"sending-crude-oil-into-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/sending-crude-oil-into-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Sending crude oil into space to study earth’s depths"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Jiuquan<\/a>
Jiuquan launch centre<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Containers of highly pressurised crude oil will be launched into space from China next week to help improve our knowledge of oil reservoirs buried kilometres underground.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Soret Coefficient in Crude Oil experiment will measure how hydrocarbon molecules redistribute when the temperature is not uniform. Learning how complex liquids behave is of interest to the petroleum industry and academia, who can apply the data to model real-life conditions of oil reservoirs deep underground. These measurements can only be performed in weightlessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Crude<\/a>
Crude oil experiment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Set for launch on China\u2019s SJ-10 satellite on 6 April local time, the experiment consists of six sturdy cylinders, each containing just one millilitre of crude oil but compressed up to 500 times normal pressure at sea level on Earth \u2013 making it one of the highest-pressure items ever launched into space.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lifting-off from China\u2019s Juiquan site in the Gobi desert, the satellite will spend almost two weeks in orbit before it returns to Earth. After landing in Si Chuan province, the team will retrieve the experiment for detailed analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n

The experiment is a partnership between ESA, China\u2019s National Space Science Centre, France\u2019s Total oil company and China\u2019s PetroChina oil company.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThe experiment is designed to sharpen our understanding of deep crude oil reservoirs up to 8 km underground,\u201d explains Antonio Verga, overseeing the project for ESA.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a packet of cornflakes \u2013 over time the smaller flakes drop to the bottom under gravity. On a molecular scale this experiment is doing something similar but then looking at how temperature causes fluids to rearrange in weightlessness,\u201d says ESA\u2019s Olivier Minster.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Crude<\/a>
Crude oil experiment thermal-vacuum testing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cDeep underground, crushing pressure and rising temperature as one goes down is thought to lead to a diffusion effect \u2013 petroleum compounds moving due to temperature, basically defying gravity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOver geological timescales, heavier deposits end up rising, while lighter ones sink.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe aim is to quantify this effect in weightlessness, to make it easier to create computer models of oil reservoirs that will help guide future decisions on their exploitation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The experiment\u2019s crude oil sits in six small titanium cylinders. One end of each cylinder is warmed while the other end is cooled. Before returning to Earth, a valve is closed to prevent the liquid from remixing during reentry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sending such a high-pressure device into space is not to be taken lightly and the cylinders were built to withstand more than double pressure than they will during normal operations \u2013 1000 times atmospheric pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Crude<\/a>
Crude oil experiment cells<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A specialist company, Sanchez Technology in France, worked for the prime contractor QinetiQ Space in Belgium. The electronic unit was developed and built by the Shandong Institute of Aerospace Engineering at Yantay.<\/span><\/p>\n

The experiment passed testing with the SJ-10 spacecraft at the China Academy of Space Technology in Beijing, China last year \u2013 including thermal cycling to reproduce the extreme changes in temperature the experiment will be subjected to during its orbits of Earth, as well as vibration and shock testing to simulate launch and reentry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks ago ESA and QinetiQ staff took the 8.5 kg flight unit \u2013 about the size of a desktop computer \u2013 on a four-day drive to the remote launch site in Gansu province. The experiment with its oil-filled cells is now ready for its journey to space tomorrow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Containers of highly pressurised crude oil will be launched into space from China next week to help improve our knowledge of oil reservoirs buried kilometres underground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large-300x168.jpg",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",600,338,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",600,338,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",550,310,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",95,54,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",625,352,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",96,54,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jiuquan_launch_centre_large.jpg",150,84,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}