Growing Plants in Space without Gravity

Following a brief overview of plant-growth systems in space, development and testing of an advanced system will be presented. Designed to be a large-scale plant-growth facility to support long-duration exploration missions in space, Astro Garden employs a unique aeroponics nutrient delivery and recovery system that plays a critical role by mitigating the added mass required by soil media. An evaluation of this technology was performed in the microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS) using the eXposed Root On-Orbit Test System (XROOTS). Implementation and testing of the XROOTS payload will be presented, including operation of the system and the resulting plant growth on ISS during a six-month technology demonstration in 2022.