Tomatoes grown on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of a NASA study on the possibility of fresh food for astronauts will return to Earth over the weekend, following the successful completion of the experiment. According to a report by Metro News, the samples from the Veg-05 experiment, which produced dwarf tomatoes in the station’s ‘Veggie’ facility to investigate the effects of light quality and fertiliser on fruit production, microbiological safety, and nutritional value, will be transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida for further analysis.
The ‘Veggie’ vegetable-production system on the ISS is seen as an opportunity to develop a ‘pick-and-eat’ fresh vegetable component to food on the space station, particularly for future crewed exploration missions to Mars. The experiment was also intended to assess the potential psychological effects of growing plants in space.
For the Veg-05 study, salad plants such as leafy greens and dwarf tomatoes were grown in the ‘Veggie’ units while in space, with a focus on the effects of light quality and fertiliser formulation on the crops. A duplicate ground study was conducted to provide a comparison to the plants cultivated on the ISS, and each crop was cultivated under two distinct LED lighting setups in two different Veggie chambers. Plant “pillows,” sacks with a wicking surface filled with soilless substrate and fertiliser, were used to grow six plants, which were nurtured for 104 days by the crew.
The astronauts who tended to the plants opened wicks to assist seedlings in sprouting, provided water, thinned the seedlings, pollinated them, and kept an eye on their health and development. They also filled out a number of surveys to gauge how their mood changed as the plants grew. The study is expected to contribute to the establishment of horticulture standards to obtain high yields of secure, nutritious dwarf tomato fruit to augment a space diet of pre-packaged food.
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