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Lada, a plant growth system developed jointly by the Space Dynamics Laboratory and the Institute of Biomedical Problems for long-term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS), was launched on a Progress vehicle in September 2002. Lada, named for the ancient Russian Goddess of Spring, uses design features and technology similar to the Svet greenhouse on the Mir orbital outpost. The Lada checkout experiment produced its first crop (a leafy vegetable — Mizuna [Brassica rapa cv. nipposinica]) during October and November. The crop was shared between the crew and researchers, with about half of the crop being returned on Soyuz. This paper presents checkout experiment results and initial crew-plant interactions.

Lada, named for the ancient Russian Goddess of Spring, is a plant growth system developed jointly by the Space Dynamics Laboratory and the Institute of Biomedical Problems for long-term deployment on the International Space Station. Lada uses design features and technology similar to the Svet greenhouse on the Mir orbital outpost, and will be launched to ISS in June 02. It is scheduled to support its first crop (a leafy vegetable - Mizuna [Brassica rapa var. nipposinica]) in October 02. Lada consists of four major components (a control module, two vegetation modules and a water tank) and is designed to be deployed on a cabin wall. This deployment scheme was chosen to provide the crew therapeutic viewing and easy access to the plants. The two independently controlled vegetation modules allow comparisons between two vegetation or substrate treatments. The vegetation modules consist of three sub-modules, a light bank, the leaf chamber, and a root module.