China Installs Oven in Space Station, Astronauts Use It to Enjoy Succulent Barbecue Feast

For decades, if astronauts wanted to enjoy a nice Sunday roast, they’d have to make due with congealed meat paste from a tube.

Now that finally appears to be changing — at least according to video released by the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA), which is roughly China’s equivalent to NASA.

The footage shows astronauts aboard the Tiangong space station — the PRC’s low earth orbit research platform, first launched in 2021 — roasting half a dozen wings in a small oven onboard the craft.

Both drums and flats are loaded onto a tray, which locks the floating bits of meat up in a cage-like apparatus so they don’t drift off. The astronauts — or taikonauts, to be technical — then load the tray into an oven, which looks more like a front-loading clothes dryer than a typical kitchen appliance