Called the "Veggie," the plant growth facility will be the first of its kind in the advancement of producing fresh food that has long been rescinded from astronauts. It is part of the ambitious Veg-01 experiment, which is expected to improve and support plant growth via "plant pillows."
It will be onboard the Dragon capsule on the SpaceX-3 resupply mission. The first plant to be cultivated on ISS will be the lettuce seedings named "Outredgeous."
Back at the Space Life Sciences Laboratory, the first batch of lettuces and radishes were already planted in the prototype. They were sowed in the root-mat pillows of Veggies and like the normal way on how to care for plants on Earth, they are looked after, watered and monitored for the microorganisms that thrived in them.
"Veggie will provide a new resource for U.S. astronauts and researchers as we begin to develop the capabilities of growing fresh produce and other large plants on the space station," said Gioia Massa, NASA payload scientist for Veggie. "Determining food safety is one of our primary goals for this validation test."
Veggie is a portable farm and it is complete with all the ingredients necessary for photosynthesis. Plants in space don't necessarily need sunlight, as the sunlight in outer space is different than that of the one that reaches the Earth. The plants' primary source of light will then be coming from the red, blue, and green LEDs from the Veggie's flat-panel light bank.
With its 11.5 inches wide and 14.5 inches deep measurements, it is by far the largest plant growth chamber in space, Massa said. Despite its scale, Veggie, which is developed by Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC) in Madison, Wisconsin, is collapsible and can even expand up to a foot and a half should the plants grow bigger along the way.
Ever since astronauts came to live in space, their food is dry and sometimes compressed to a cube, to meet the weight limit and at the same time still provide the balanced nutrition they need. Since the weight of every item is crucial, each meal is dehydrated, compressed and sealed in air-tight bags and containers.
Veggie will be a fresh start.
