Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA
21.08.2023 - 11:49 / theunconventionalgardener.com / Emma Doughty
Russia is poised to send a new kind of greenhouse to the International Space Station to grow plants “on an industrial scale”.
So far, only small amounts of food have been grown on the ISS. However, with the recent arrival of the new Nauka (“Science”) module (officially known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, or MLM), the road is open for the delivery of the Vitacycle-T space greenhouse.
Until now, salad crops on the ISS have been grown in batches in the Veggie growing system. Vitacycle-T works on a continuous cycle as a sort of lettuce conveyor belt.
Yuri Smirnov is Head of the Biomedical Laboratory at the Institute of Biomedical Problems within the Russian Academy of Sciences. Speaking with Russian news agency Tass, he said:
“A cosmonaut will plant a strip with seeds in the greenhouse at certain intervals. He will then spin a drum and lay the next strip after a certain time. The cosmonauts will be able to gather a harvest at specific periods. During the first experiment, the Napa cabbage will be grown, for example.”
Although the cosmonauts will have to return some of the crops to Earth for analysis, they will be able to sample their harvests. It looks as though the early Vitacycle-T experiments will concentrate on leafy greens, but Russia hopes to use it to grow grain, legumes and dwarf tomatoes. In fact, they have ambitious plans to grow wheat and make bread in space, although those would seem to be very long-term goals.
In April, Vladimir Soloviev (Flight Director of the Russian Segment of the ISS) announced:
“The project of a new greenhouse, which we are currently developing, is developed by the Institute of Biomedical Problems, so that it is possible to develop a technology for non-operator cultivation, a technology
Header image: Mizuna lettuce growing aboard the International Space Station before being harvested and frozen for return to Earth. Image credit: NASA
Fresh from the success that allowed astronauts to eat lettuce grown in space in August, NASA’s Veggie plant-growing hardware on the International Space Station (ISS) has been reloaded with new plant pillows – this time sown with Zinnia ‘Profusion’.
I joined Facebook in October 2007, and Twitter in May 2008. Social media has been a massive part of my life for more than a decade. It was originally a way to find and connect with like-minded people, and a natural extension of my blog. I made good friends, some of whom I went on to meet in the flesh.
It’s hard to imagine anyone being more excited about eating lettuce than the three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were yesterday, when they tucked into the first leaves of space-grown lettuce they’ve been allowed to eat. Despite having to sanitise the leaves first, with citric-acid-based, food-safe, antibacterial wipes (yummy!), they broke out the oil and vinegar and tucked in with gusto. They even thanked Mission Control and the scientists for giving them the opportunity to take part in this payload mission, and saved some veggies for the Russian cosmonauts who were outside on a spacewalk at harvest time.
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.
Move over, Mark Watney, there’s a new space botanist heading for Mars! Ryan and I have just finished watching the new Netflix series Away, which follows (over 10 episodes) the quest of five international astronauts to be the first people to set foot on the red planet.
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.
This is what the wild, self-seeded comfrey plant outside my front door looked like last week. It doesn’t look like that now, though, because I have cut it back and put the leaves to rot in one of my comfrey buckets (they have lids and taps). First, though, I had to empty out the last lot of comfrey liquid. I can’t remember when I made it – I don’t think it was last year, I think it must have been before that – and I harvested 3 litres of comfrey liquid from my pair of bucket. That’s certainly enough to keep my tomatoes and peppers happy this year!
If there’s a plant that’s destined to explode onto the Grow Your Own scene this year, then it has to be agretti (Salsola soda). Agretti got good press last year as being a vegetable sought-after by chefs; it didn’t hurt that seed was in short supply! Suppliers have taken note, however, and there are plenty more sources this year.
It has been a month since we set up the AeroGarden and started our journey into space gardening. It came with three herbs – basil, dill and parsley. The basil was the first to burst into life and has been the fastest growing. I trimmed the top of one of the young plants at the end of July, and it’s probably ready for another trim now. The parsley was the slowest to germinate and isn’t remotely close to catching up, but it is growing well now.
Hello! Welcome to Gardeners off World. The big news for space gardeners this week is that NASA has determined that the salads grown in Veggie are safe to eat. And a team of Russian researchers have developed a prototype for an orbital greenhouse. The Orbital Biological Automatic Module includes smart lighting to accelerate plant growth, specialised hydroponics, automated irrigation and harvesting solutions. It could be heading to the International Space Station (ISS) – “Humanity’s home in Low Earth Orbit” – in the next few years.
Sixty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin launched us into the era of human spaceflight. The Russian cosmonaut achieved a major milestone in the Space Race when he orbited the Earth in the Vostok 1 capsule. This amazing achievement came less than four years after the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1.