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Long distance/duration human space missions demand economical, regenerative life support systems. With naturally available light and low atmospheric pressures, missions to the surface of Mars might employ higher plants in a bioregenerative life support systems housed within a transparent inflatable greenhouse. The primary advantages of an inflatable structure are low mass, derived from pressure stabilization of the structure, the ability to collapse into a small storage volume for transit and ease of construction. Many high performance engineering polymer films exist today that are either highly or mostly transparent. Selection of one of these materials for an inflatable greenhouse to operate in the Mars surface environment poses a number of challenges. First, materials must be strong enough to resist the differential pressure loading between the inside plant environment and the near vacuum of thin Martian atmosphere.

The Autonomous Garden Pod (AG-Pod) is a modular crop production system that can lower the equivalent system mass (ESM) for bioregenerative life support systems. AG-Pod combines existing technologies, many of which are at the technology readiness level (“TRL”) 8 or 9, into a flight-ready system adaptable to many needs from Space Station microgravity plant research to interplanetary transit and planetary surface food production systems. The plant-rated module resides external to the spacecraft pressurized volume and can use natural direct solar illumination. This reduces the ESM of crop production systems by eliminating the use of spacecraft internal pressurized volume and by reducing power and heat rejection resources that would be needed for full artificial lighting. However, lowering of the crop production ESM is also achieved from the use of lightweight structures including composite and inflatable technology.