A Vegetable Production System 250 Miles High in the Sky

The week proceeding Easter, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule headed up to the International Space Station (ISS) on its third commercial supply mission. Food supplies were an important part of its cargo but stowed away in a space of just 0.02m? was a new means of growing food aloft.

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The Vegetable Production System, or ‘Veggie’ as it is termed, expands to fill 0.11m? of space aboard the ISS. Developed for NASA by Orbital Technologies Corporation of Madison, Wisconsin it has been labelled a new investigation with ‘edible results.’ Veggie is a deployable plant growth unit providing lighting and nutrients, while utilizing the cabin environment on the ISS for temperature control as well as a source of carbon dioxide to promote growth, says NASA. For now it will produce salad crops that will be harvested by the astronauts for both consumption and future investigation. Bellows allow Veggie to expand to a maximum height of 45 centimetres, with a grow space of 0.16m. It may be suspended by either Velcro straps in an aisle or positioned in a Middeck Locker or EXPRESS Rack on an adapter mounting plate. Veggie weighs 7.2kg and requires 115 watts of power. Within the device, seed plugs are installed in the root mat. Water is added, power applied and daylight cycle options adjusted. Technically, grow lights provide red (640 nm) 300 micromole/m?/s, green (540 nm) micromole/m?/s and blue (440 nm) 50 micromole/m?/s. Fans and ventilation holes in the Veggie provide fresh air to the plants. These may require adjusting as the plants grow along with other maintenance such as adding water as needed. Apparently all of this is much enjoyed by the space station crews. “Based upon anecdotal evidence, crews report that having plants around [from previous space studies] was very comforting and helped them feel less out of touch with Earth,” reported Gioia Massa, a project scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. “You could also think of plants as pets. The crew just likes to nurture them.” And, of course, eat them.