The official match ball for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, manufactured in Pakistan, has undergone an unusual pre-tournament test in space.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station used Adidas’ Trionda match ball in a series of experiments to examine how a football behaves in microgravity, focusing on how its balance and centre of mass influence movement.
Sharing images from the experiment on Instagram, National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the crew recreated a study first conducted in 2019 to better understand the physics of a football in space.
“The official FIFA World Cup ball went to space,” NASA said, adding that sports engineers carefully fine-tune a ball’s balance to ensure it performs consistently under match conditions.