Space-flown seeds Ideas, Tips & Guides

When ESA’s new Vega C rocket blasted off from French Guiana for the first time, on 13 July 2022, it carried an Italian garden into space.

In 1971, NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa, a former US Department of Agriculture Forest Services smoke jumper, carried tree seeds into lunar orbit during the Apollo 14 mission. The The US Department of Agriculture Forest Services grew those seeds into seedlings, and the distributed the resulting ‘Moon Trees’ to national monuments and dignitaries around the world, with a large number distributed as part of the United States Bicentennial events.  

While we’re waiting for Tim Peake to blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin his Principia mission, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the first Briton in space – Helen Sharman, who was also the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in 1991.

Join Emma the Space Gardener in the Gardeners of the Galaxy time machine to learn about the time that NASA encouraged schoolchildren all over the world to grow killer mutant space tomatoes. That can’t be right, can it?

Join Emma the Space Gardener on the Tiangong space station to learn about China’s botanical experiments in space, and why Chinese consumers are eagerly awaiting rice from heaven. Plus – what was the first plant grown in space?

In December 2015, as we were waiting for Tim Peake to launch to the ISS and start his Principia mission, I talked about Helen Sharman, the first Briton in space. In that blog post, I quoted David M. Harland, from his book The Mir Space Station: A Precursor to Space Colonization:

Back in 2014, I bought some seeds that had been into space. They are cinnamon basil (Ocimum basilicum Cinnamon), still sealed into their space packet. 

On 31 January 1971, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa launched on their Apollo 14 mission to the Moon. While Shepard and Mitchell walked on the Moon, Roosa stayed in orbit, taking photographs and performing experiments. Tucked away in his personal belongings were 500 tree seeds, which orbited the Moon 34 times.

Dr Federica Brandizzi of Michigan State University is the Principal Investigator for the Life Beyond Earth: Effect of Spaceflight on Seeds with Improved Nutritional Value study, an experiment headed for the Moon on NASA’s Artemis I mission. In this short video, she explains why she’s sending plant seeds into space.

On 9th September 2021, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov conducted a spacewalk to connect an ethernet local network cable, two high-frequency television cables and a cable for the Kurs-P rendezvous system into the new ISS module Nauka (the MLM). They also installed three new containers in the Biorisk hardware. Biorisk is a Russian suite of hardware used to measure the impacts of the space environment on biological activity.

In 2021, One Giant Leap Australia sent golden wattle seeds into space, as part of a nationwide STEM project to explore “What’ll Happen to the Wattle??!”. In this episode, Emma the Space Gardener talks to Jackie Carpenter about how the seeds got to space, and then back home again, and what’s next for the space-flown wattle seeds.

…a team of researchers led by Dr Mike Dixon, director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility (CESRF) at the University of Guelph, sent several thousand barley seeds to the International Space Station (ISS). 

In 2018, the German Space Agency (DLR) and ESA launched 2kg of wildflower seeds (containing 61 species) to the International Space Station as part of astronaut Alexander Gerst’s Horizons mission.

NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement has just announced more details about the tree seeds they’ve packed into the Orion capsule for the upcoming Artemis I launch. They’re partnering with the USDA Forest Service in a STEM education project that sends a “new generation” of Moon Tree seeds to lunar orbit and connects Artemis I programming to Earth science, data literacy and citizen science orbit.

With the launch of NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon just days away, Emma the Space Gardener has put together a guide covering the highlights of the mission for space gardeners. Learn about the space biology experiments on their way to their Moon, the seeds stashed away in the Orion capsule, and more!

NASA has put together a short video introducing the science experiments that are part of the upcoming Artemis I mission to the Moon.

In May 2020, NASA launched payloads on the military space plane X-37B to study space radiation effects on materials and seeds. At the time, that was pretty much all they said. But now they’ve released details of the space seed experiments, which are still in orbit over two years later.

The USDA Forest Service and NASA are sending tree seeds to orbit the Moon! On Thursday, October 27th 2022, they broadcast a live event on the topic. It was so much fun!

In November 2022, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sent sorghum and Arabidopsis seeds to the International Space Station. The seeds have been exposed to life in space – inside and outside of the station – to see whether the unique environment will encourage helpful mutations. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have launched seeds into space on NG-18 today as they intensify their joint efforts to develop new crops able to adapt to the ravages of climate change here on Earth.