ISS astronauts – Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have kicked an official FIFA Men’s World Cup ball in zero gravity and used it to run microgravity experiments tied to how soccer balls spin and move—work that could influence future World Cup ball performance o
For a few floaty minutes. the International Space Station looked a lot less like a laboratory and a lot more like a pitch. Four crew members played with an official FIFA Men’s World Cup ball as it slowly drifted inside the orbital outpost—an act that was fun on the surface. but part of a set of experiments meant to answer a more technical question: how does a soccer ball behave when gravity isn’t in the way?.
NASA shared a short video from the ISS on June 20 on the social platform X, showing the ball moving in near-weightlessness while the astronauts worked around the demanding routine of keeping the station running.
The ball arrived at the ISS in September on a cargo resupply mission carried out by Virginia aerospace and defense contractor Northrop Grumman, according to a NASA spokeswoman for the USA TODAY Network.
The broader goal. NASA said in a press release. was to study how soccer balls perform in microgravity so researchers can better understand the aerodynamic and physics involved in a powerful kick. That could shape how soccer balls perform during crucial matches in the international spotlight, including future World Cups.
The astronauts weren’t just testing whether a ball can be kicked in space. The experiments were aimed at understanding how a soccer ball’s spin, movement, and stability change when conditions are stripped of Earth’s gravitational pull.
“In microgravity. we can observe ball behavior in ways that are impossible to observe on Earth. ” NASA astronaut Jessica Meir said in an educational video. Meir’s message was also about what viewers might not realize during those perfectly placed shots: “There’s some serious engineering spinning inside that ball. ” she concluded in the video. first shared in May on NASA’s “STEMonstrations” YouTube channel.
The timing of the research matters because the modern World Cup ball is already engineered with more than just feel. Since 2022. Adidas has embedded electronics inside official match balls used in major tournaments to track metrics such as speed. position. and contact in real time. While the system supports officiating and enhances live broadcasts. the sensors can also add uneven mass distribution that impedes a ball’s movement in the air.
That creates a balancing act—collecting useful data without disrupting the ball’s flight. Even before sensor technology became part of top-level match balls. researchers studied how different factors could alter a soccer ball’s balance. In 2014, that work took place at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Taken together, the ISS ball tests are one more step toward isolating which design choices matter most once a ball leaves the foot—especially when embedded electronics enter the picture.
The microgravity setting helps because it removes the masking effect of gravity. letting scientists watch behavior that can’t be captured the same way on Earth. The next time a ball curves into the corner. the hope is that the engineering behind it will be closer to perfect—because space offered a cleaner view of what’s happening mid-flight.
The work is happening as the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup is underway. The tournament kicked off Thursday, June 11, and runs until Sunday, July 19. The first game took place in Mexico, with the tournament concluding with finals in New York City. Matches will be played across 16 cities in North America, including 11 in the United States.
Inside the International Space Station right now, the ball experiment is being carried out by the seven astronauts of Expedition 74. The station includes the four-person Crew-12 group that docked in mid-February: NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway. along with the European Space Agency’s Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Crew-12 is due to depart in September following the arrival of Crew-13.
Also on board are NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russians Sergey Mikaev and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who arrived at the end of November on a Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft. They will remain at the orbital laboratory until their replacements arrive in July.
The International Space Station itself has been stationed in low-Earth orbit for more than 25 years, typically about 260 miles high. Over that time, it has served as a test bed for scientific research in microgravity and has, in past years, opened itself up to private commercial missions.
The ISS is operated through a global partnership that includes NASA. Roscosmos. the European Space Agency. the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. and the Canadian Space Agency. More than 290 spacefarers from 26 countries have visited the ISS, including 170 from the United States alone, according to NASA.
While the World Cup brings millions of eyes to every touch and bounce, the astronauts are showing another side of the sport—one where microgravity becomes a tool for testing how a ball spins, shifts, and behaves when physics changes its rules.
International Space Station ISS FIFA World Cup microgravity experiments soccer ball aerodynamics NASA Adidas electronics match balls Northrop Grumman Expedition 74