Hands-on gardening on the ISS
21.08.2023 - 12:02
/ theunconventionalgardener.com
/ Emma Doughty
If you’re currently tending lettuce plants, then you have something in common with the crew on board the International Space Station (ISS). They’re testing NASA’s new Vegetable Production System – affectionately known as ‘Veggie’. At 11.5 inches by 14.5 inches, Veggie is the largest plant growth chamber to have been blasted into space, and was developed by Orbital Technologies Corp.
Veggie was delivered to the ISS onboard the dragon capsule of SpaceX-3 in April, and installed in the Columbus module at the beginning of May. It has red and blue LEDs to supply the plants with the light they need for growth; it also has green LEDs that the astronauts can turn on to give white illumination, so that the plants don’t look funny colours.
Veggie’s first experiment, Veg-01, is mainly a hardware validation test to check everything is working properly. It has been ‘planted’ with six ‘pillows’ – each one contains the growing medium, a controlled-release fertiliser and calcined clay to improve aeration and plant growth. Water is supplied via a root mat, and wicks for the plants (which also help ensure they grow the right way up in microgravity!).
Veg-01 will be growing ‘Outredgeous‘ romaine lettuce, a very red lettuce that will be familiar to US gardeners, but which has only recently become available in the UK. An astronaut will thin the seedlings down to one plant per pillow, and the experiment lasts for 28 days. Photos will be taken each week, and microbial samples will be taken as well. At the end of the 28 days, the lettuce will be harvested and frozen and stored until it can be returned to Earth on SpaceX-4 in August.
The lettuce harvest will be analysed on Earth to ensure that it’s safe to eat. If so then a second set of pillows can
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