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The Deployable Vegetable Production System (VEGGIE) was originally developed as a way to produce fresh vegetables on the ISS with minimal resources. We are reassessing this system for use in lunar habitats to produce palatable, nutritious, and safe fresh food, provide a recreational tool, and provide a platform to support biological life support development by allowing in situ study of crop productivity and air and water revitalization. The VEGGIE system consists of plant growth chambers that can be stowed in a volume less than 10% of their deployed volume, while still providing the light output and root zone capabilities necessary to support high plant productivity rates. The system has significantly reduced logistical and operational requirements compared to other plant growth systems, and is of a modular design to allow logistical flexibility in terms of transport options and placement in a habitat structure.

When overhead electric lights are used for plant growth, inefficiency occurs due to inability to accurately target light. Light falls between young plants, but as they grow, shading occurs, requiring more light to achieve acceptable productivity. We have developed an intracanopy light-emitting diode (LED)-based system that can deliver light throughout the foliar canopy of crop stands and keep pace with crop growth. LEDs having narrow red and blue emission wavebands were selected. An array of 16 “Lightsicles” was constructed, each consisting of 20, 2.5 cm2 LED “light engines” containing 80 LEDs mounted along a strip. Measurements of light level and power usage have been taken and plant-growth testing is underway.

In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is an important part of current mission architectures for both a return to the Moon and the eventual human exploration of Mars. ORBITEC has developed and demonstrated an innovative direct energy processing approach for carbon-reduction of lunar and Martian regolith that can operate in a nearly closed-loop manner. Carbon-reduction of regolith produces oxygen and a variety of other useful products, including silicon, iron and glass ceramic materials. In addition, various ISRU propulsion technologies that utilize lunar and Martian resources have been developed and demonstrated. Work is also being conducted with the USDA on techniques to use biomass and waste materials to manufacture items such as shelters, furniture, filters and paper. Atmospheric carbon dioxide on Mars would be used to support the production of biomass in excess of life support needs to be used as the raw material to manufacture useful products on-site.

A common question for students to ask educators is “When am I ever going to use this?” An excellent way to answer that question is to demonstrate how interrelated many subjects are. At ORBITEC in Madison, WI, we are developing systems to help teachers demonstrate the exciting interrelationships of science, math and technology using activities related to growing plants in space. We are developing two portable plant growth systems that integrate multiple disciplines, enriching students’ classroom experiences. Each portable growth unit is based on similar principles. The Space Garden and Biomass Production Education System (BPES) are growth units for indoor use that utilize a bellows technology to create a greenhouse-like environment. The Space Garden is a personal growth unit that a student can use individually while the BPES will be 0.25 m2, allowing larger-scale experimentation. The Space Garden will be best used in classrooms of grades four through seven.

The Biomass Production System (BPS) was flown on the ISS for 73 days as part of the Increment 4 mission. To obtain maximum benefit from the long mission duration, numerous manual crew procedures were incorporated into the BPS experiments. These procedures included gas sampling, root module priming, harvesting, pollination, filter cleaning, water refill, and water sampling. On-orbit crew assessments were filled out for each of these procedures to evaluate the ability of BPS to accommodate them. The assessment asked questions about each phase of an activity and solicited recommendations for improvements. Further analysis of most procedures was provided by detailed video made on-orbit and multiple post-flight crew debriefs. Most assessments indicated no need for improvements, but a number of crew suggestions will be incorporated into hardware and procedure updates.

The Biomass Production System, recently flown on the ISS for 73 days, demonstrated significant advancements in functional performance over previous systems for conducting plant science in microgravity. The Biomass Production System (BPS) was the first flight of a system with multiple, independently controlled, plant growth chambers. Each of four chambers was controlled separately with respect to temperature, humidity, light level, nutrient level, and CO2, and all were housed in a double Middeck locker-sized payload. During the mission, each of the subsystems performed within specification. This paper focuses on how the performance of the BPS hardware allowed successful completion of the preflight objectives.

The PESTO (Photosynthetic Experiment System Testing and Operation) experiment flew in the Biomass Production System (BPS) to International Space Station (ISS) on STS-110 (Atlantis) April 8, 2002, and returned on STS-111 (Endeavour) June 19, 2002, after 73 days in space. The ground control was conducted on a two-week delay at Kennedy Space Center in a BPS unit under environmental conditions comparable to ISS. Wheat (Triticum aestivum cv Apogee) and Brassica rapa cv Astroplant were independently grown in root modules for multiple grow-outs. On-orbit harvests, root modules exchanges and primings, seeds imbibitions, and gas and water samplings occurred at periodic intervals; all were replicated in ground controls. Many operations required crew handling and open access to individual chambers, allowing the exchange of microorganisms between the crew environment and the BPS modules.

The Biomass Production System (BPS) is a double middeck locker payload designed to fly on the Orbiter or Space Station. The BPS contains four plant growth chambers (PGCs) with independent control of temperature, humidity, lighting, CO2, and nutrient solution delivery, allowing for multiple experimental treatments. The BPS provides several features to support on-orbit science activities including the ability to downlink system and science data, video cameras with framegrab capability to collect images for recording plant development, access to plants to perform activities such as pollination or tissue sampling, and gas and fluid sampling ports for sampling of the plant environment. Other capabilities include the ability to conduct CO2 drawdowns, allowing photosynthetic measurements, and the ability to meter plant CO2 and water use. Several technology developments have been evaluated for possible implementation during future upgrades to enhance science capabilities.

The Plant Research Unit development effort will provide a high-performance and highly versatile, controlled environment plant growth chamber for space-based variable gravity science and biotechnology investigations on the International Space Station. Temperature, humidity, atmospheric composition, lighting, and nutrient delivery are the critical parameters to control in an automated and reliable way. Access to plant material on-orbit and maintenance of the unit with minimal crew effort are other major requirements, as is a modular design allowing easy subsystem/technology change-outs so that science capability and maintainability are maximized. The Plant Research Unit (PRU) development program is based on the results of the Biomass Production System (BPS) and many other technical developments, and uses the BPS as a risk mitigation prototype for the PRU.

The Biomass Production System (BPS) was developed to meet science, biotechnology and commercial plant growth needs in Space. The BPS is a double middeck locker equivalent payload with four internal plant chambers. The chambers can be removed to allow manipulation or sampling of specimens, and are sealed to allow CO2 and water vapor exchange measurements. Each of the growth chambers has independent control of temperature, humidity, lighting, and carbon dioxide levels. Preliminary acceptance and performance testing has demonstrated temperature control within ±1.0°C (between 20°C and 30°C) and humidity control within ±5% (between 60% and 90% RH, depending on ambient temperature and plant load). The fluorescent lighting system provides light levels between 60 and 350 μmol m−2s−1. The CO2 control system controls to the greater of ±50 ppm or ±5% (with plants, as a scrubber is not currently available).