Sunday Supplement: The Launch of Tomatosphere
Over a million tomato seeds are orbiting the Earth, continuing a project as old as this millennium.
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The ISS Daily Summary Report for the 4th April 2024 has a note about space-flown tomato seeds:
"Tomatosphere 8: The crew gathered the two Tomatosphere 8 seed bags and took images of them floating in the Cupola. Tomatosphere 8 consists of a shipment of 1.2 million tomato seeds to the ISS, where they visit for a short while aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft before returning to Earth. The seeds are then sent to classrooms across Canada and the United States, along with seeds that remained on Earth. Students grow both types in a blind study that teaches them how to think like scientists."
As far as I can tell, the images it mentions haven't been published yet. However, I have managed to confirm that the seeds for Tomatosphere 8 were part of the payload on SpaceX CRS-30, which launched to the ISS on 12th March 2024.
I have a slight obsession with the Tomatosphere project, and a long-running desire to figure out how many seeds it has launched into space, and when. However, it's not entirely straightforward and I'm still chipping away at it.
So today I thought I would start at the beginning, and look at how Tomatosphere got started.
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