Cooking in Orbit: Chinese astronauts bake in space station with world's first space-use oven

Cooking in orbit.

Astronauts baked in China's space station with the world's first space-use oven.

The hot air oven delivered by the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft has allowed crew members of the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 missions to cook chicken wings and steak.

With built-in purification, the oven allows smoke-free baking functions in the zero-gravity environment.

By raising the maximum temperature from 100 to 190 degrees Celsius, it marks a step forward from simple reheating of food previously to actual cooking -- from baking cakes and roasting peanuts to grilling meat.