DESIGN I - Mission Overview

Astronaut freeze-dried foods lose a significant amount of their nutritional vitamin/mineral value within the first 6 months of storage. Therefore, producing food in space in the form of edible crops for space exploration (e.g., Moon, Mars and beyond) is a necessity. However, the spaceflight environment (e.g., radiation and reduced/partial gravity) is stressful for humans and plants alike. Furthermore, the International Space Station (ISS) while in Low Earth Orbit (~250 miles up from Earth), is conducting several growth experiments to observe this phenomenon in an attempt to meet this growing need. However, conducting these experiments is incredibly expensive, time consuming, and requires daily human interaction. For instance, the maintenance needed to nurture plants and the contribution humans make of turning O2 to CO2. Furthermore, the need for autonomous growth chambers for the study of plant growth in LEO would greatly contribute to this research area. 

The proposed CubeSat mission will autonomously grow the candidate plant Red Romaine Lettuce and expose it to the stressors in LEO such as microgravity and radiation. As the driving requirements are derived by the respective candidate plant, as seen in Table 3, it is imperative to monitor all aspects of the growth chamber. Therefore, a series of sensors such as temperature/ humidity sensors along with hyperspectral and optical cameras will be used to capture the impact the stressors impart on the plant and communicate it back to Earth. The resulting data can then be compared to previously collected control data from earth and the ISS. 

While the concept of sending plant life to space is not inconceivable, developing a satellite with a growth chamber large enough to support such a large produce plant is quite a challenge. Previous designs have centered around microgreens but are still limited in study. The uniqueness of this problem results in custom builds and even pricier customized components. Furthermore, our team is embarking on the groundbreaking mission to develop the small satellite, BIOSat (Botany In Orbit Satellite).

Mission Statement: Investigate autonomous plant development in the LEO microgravity environment to enhance our knowledge of space agriculture and contribute to the long-term sustainability of human habitation beyond Earth.  

Currently, food within space is limited to freeze-dried food which can lose nutritional value over time. The ISS is growing nutritional plants however this requires human tasking such as watering and cleaning. Along with human interaction, space and time is involved, leading to high expenses. BIOSat’s mission is to autonomously grow red romaine lettuce for NASA to further investigate candidate plants for nutritional diversity. This closed loop system will allow for optimal tunability to develop a healthy growing plant while exposing it to microgravity in the LEO environment. The results will expand NASA’s understanding of plant stressors in space and further nutritional variety for astronauts in deep space exploration while minimizing overall cost and size/space requirements. 

As the project currently stands the overall project remains at a TRL 3. For the latest model see Figure 1. The working theories can be found in section 2, Experimental Plan, while calculations can be found in the Budget Summary.