Gardeners of the Galaxy Mission Report: 3 September 2024
Your weekly round-up of astrobotany news and adventure. This week we've got plants flying on Polaris Dawn, more on our new astronaut astrobotanist, and teeny weeny space tomatoes.
Hello, Gardeners of the Galaxy! Welcome to this week's Mission Report.
After a series of delays, Polaris Dawn has a new potential launch date: 3:38 am EDT (08:39 BST) tomorrow (4 September). The mission includes an astrobotany experiment – LEO PLANTS – from the US Air Force Academy.
Cadets and faculty at the Academy are participating in the project, which focuses on determining how the root and shoot systems of plants react to different gravitational environments in space. The experiment involves planting genetically-modified mustard seeds and testing how fungus, magnets and radiation each influences those plants in the microgravity of space. In addition to the plants deployed on the five-day space mission, there will be a control group of plants on Earth and a group of plants exposed to a centrifuge mimicking microgravity.
“It blows my mind that cadets at the Academy have opportunities to work on projects like this,” said Cadet 1st Class Caroline Harshbarger, one of the cadets involved in the plant project. “The research opportunities here are really astounding and this could be something that changes everything we know about space and how it works.”
One of the challenges of the project is fitting their four experiments into one small housing no larger than a box of tissues (10 cm3) that could safely travel to space while meeting the specifications of the Polaris Dawn mission. That’s where equipment specialist Morgan Vance came in. He designed a 3D printed housing that incorporates the plants, batteries, lights, magnets and a magnetic shielding plate to ensure the experiments are properly controlled.
“If we get the data we’re hoping to get, it will advance our ability to grow plants in space travel,” Cadet 2nd Class Jacqueline Kelly said. “And that’s so mind boggling to me, that we, as cadets, can do that.”
Rob Ferl took a giant leap for astrobotany last week when he became the first NASA-funded university researcher to conduct their own experiments in space. Rob launched on Blue Origin’s NS-26 suborbital flight, which climbed to an altitude of 345,958 feet, well above the Karman Line. He and his crewmates experienced several minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returned to Earth.
“It couldn’t have been a better experience,” Ferl said a few after landing. “There is room for scientists of all sizes, shapes and ages to do this. There is a lot of opportunity in a ride like that.”
Ferl and his long-time collaborator, fellow UF Professor Anna-Lisa Paul have sent dozens of experiments to space over the last 20 years in an effort to understand how living organisms respond, at the molecular level, to launch, microgravity and return to Earth. Typically, those experiments have involved plants loaded into complex, largely self-sufficient payload packages managed by NASA astronauts. Paul, director of UF’s Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, said these experiments have largely been done “in space” but not “on the way to space.”
For Thursday’s mission, Ferl carried experimental plants in specially designed tubes attached to his flight suit that he activated at four different points during the trip to space and back: prior to launch, upon reaching microgravity, at the end of the weightless period as the vehicle began its descent, and upon landing.
At the Payload Processing Facility on the ground, lab manager Jordan Callaham tracked his progress and activated a set of control tubes at the same time. Paul said the hours of training the team did in preparation for the mission was invaluable.
“The astronaut did a fantastic job and it enabled us to coordinate the ground control very precisely,” she said. “The plants all looked really great. We have a perfectly paired experiment.”
[BlueOrigin posted a short video of the microgravity portion of the flight, with Rob conducting his experiment, on LinkedIn.]
Read more: UF scientist Rob Ferl completes historic space mission
In other news...
Meanwhile, on the ISS, NASA astronauts Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps have been looking after the grass plants growing in Veggie for the APEX-09 experiment. Epps has also been working with Matthew Dominick to replace a variety of life support components and sensors inside the Advanced Plant Habitat.
Read more: Space Botany, Eye Research, Plasma Physics Fill Science Schedule on Station, Busy Week of Science, Robotics, and Spacecraft Activities on Station
ISS National Lab has an in-depth feature on the work of Chris Saski and Sonika Kumar, who are using space research a part of a project to speed up the development of new cotton varieties. (It’s referring to Plant Habitat-05, ‘Unlocking the Cotton Genome to Precision Genetics’, which launched to the ISS on CRS-24).
Read more: Cotton Revolution: Unlocking New Cotton Varieties for a Sustainable Future
The summer edition of UC Riverside’s magazine has a feature on the genetically engineered compact tomatoes that could soon be launching to the ISS. The seeds will germinate in the station’s Advanced Plant Habitat laboratory, produce fruit, and the seeds of that fruit will be planted again to create a second generation of tomatoes grown in space. (This is Evaluation of Small Plants for Agriculture in Confined Environments (SPACE) Tomatoes for Space Flight Applications in NASA’s Task Book.) The article also includes details of Jinkerson’s work growing plants without sunlight.
Read more: Food in the Final Frontier
Wageningen University is launching a competition to develop a business idea that offers an innovative, circular and sustainable approach to growing food on Earth by learning from research on space farming. Ideas can involve enhancing current technologies, introducing new ones, or reimagining the concept of 'food'. The ReThink Food Challenge begins in November 2024, and you need to form a team consisting of at least 2 members. An online info session on 24 October will tell you more.
Find out more: ReThink Food Challenge, Innovating food for Earth, Mars and Moon
NASA’s Crew 9 is now scheduled to launch to earlier than 24 September. As NASA has determined that Starliner can’t bring Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home, NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson have been bumped from Crew 9 to make room for them. SpaceX Dragon will therefore launch with NASA astronaut Nick Hague, Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, and two empty seats.
Read more: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Changes Ahead of September Launch
Researchers have identified specific materials, including certain plastics, rubber, and synthetic fibres, as well as Martian soil (regolith), which would effectively protect astronauts by blocking harmful space radiation on Mars. These findings could inform the design of protective habitats and spacesuits, making long-duration Mars missions more feasible.
Read more: Researchers identify effective materials for protecting astronauts from harmful cosmic radiation on Mars
‘Cultivated’ meat is safer, kinder, more sustainable – and coming to a pet shop near you, says Meatly’s CEO, Owen Ensor. How long till it’s ready for human consumption?
Read more: ‘You don’t need animals to make real meat’: the man who grows chicken in a lab
A fun article from the BBC explores New Mexico’s green chile cheeseburger, believed to have originated in the Owl Bar & Café, just 30 minutes away from the Trinity Testing Site at the White Sands Missile Range. Plant Habitat-04 fans will note that the burger uses a mix of chiles from Hatch.
Read more: The cheeseburger that fuelled the Manhattan Project
Scientists of the Ural Federal University and their Indian colleagues have enriched microgreens (peas, mung beans, salad mustard, wheat) with minerals. They managed to increase the content of macro- and microelements in the plants by infecting them with special rhizosphere bacteria that help fix atmospheric nitrogen and release inaccessible forms of phosphorus, potassium, zinc, and iron.
Read more: University Scientists Bioforced Microgreens with Useful Mineral Substances
The Ghost Orchid, considered by many to be Britain’s rarest plant, has been rediscovered in Britain for the first time since 2009 and only the second time since the 1980s. The find was made by Richard Bate, a member of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) and a keen amateur botanist since childhood.
Read more: Britain’s rarest wild orchid discovered again after one man’s 15-year ghost hunt
Seventeen-thousand Cherokee were the last of five tribes forcibly removed from their homelands in the Southeast. During the long winter trek to Oklahoma, 6,000 men, women, and children died. Wyche’s ancestors survived to put their black beans in the earth in the new Cherokee Nation. His family planted, harvested, and seed-saved these beans for 140 years before Wyche shared the seeds with Seed Savers.
Read more: How Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans Connect a Community to Its Roots
Exactly how spines evolved in various plant species that are not closely related wasn’t fully understood—until now. A team of researchers recently found that the gene coding for thorns is the same across different plant families, even though they evolved the trait independently.
Read more: Scientists Identify the Gene Behind Thorny Roses and Other Prickly Plants
Thank you for reading the Gardeners of the Galaxy Mission Report — your support allows me to keep doing this work. You can now earn premium access by inviting friends and colleagues to subscribe and read.
There will be no newsletter next week, as I’m on vacation. I'll be back in your inboxes the following week. Thanks for reading and being part of the Gardeners of the Galaxy community.
Ex solo ad astra,
Emma (Space Gardener)