This 8.5 kg cube of about four litres in volume is the ‘Soret Coefficient in Crude Oil’ (SCCO) experiment, consisting of six sturdy cylinders, each containing a millilitre of crude oil, pressurised to 400 times our normal atmospheric level – among the highest-pressure items ever made for space. The experiment will investigate diffusion effects in microgravity. The outcome of a partnership between ESA, China’s National Space Science Center, France’s Total oil company and China’s PetroChina oil company, it will fly on China’s SJ-10 Shi Jian spacecraft near the end of 2015, along with around 20 other experiments.