Growing plants in space key for future missions

Growing plants in space key for future missions

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The Indian Space Research Organisation opened the new year by successfully germinating seeds in space. It is the first time that the space agency achieved such a feat, using cowpea seeds. It did this on Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre’s Compact Research module for orbital Plant Studies or CROPS experiment, a part of the PS4-Orbital Experiment Module platform on the space docking mission that was launched on December 30. With India planning to have its own space station by 2035, plants would be crucial for long, self-sustained stays in space. There will also be future planetary explorations where the astronauts will need sustained nutrition on longer travels.

The importance of having plant-based nutrition during long journeys is not lost. Lack of crucial nutrients during lengthy sea travels was first observed in the 19th and early 20th century among sailors who suffered from scurvy due to lack of vitamin C. Several other health problems among them were also caused by the lack of vitamins. The lesson learnt was to prevent a similar adverse impact on astronauts during long stays in space, especially on the International Space Station (ISS).

Although regular shipments of a wide variety of freeze-dried and pre-packaged meals rich in vitamins are regularly carried to the ISS, such sorties would not make sense for long-duration space travel of the future. Those astronauts would require fresh produce for sustenance. According to Nasa, during long-duration space travel, vitamins in pre-packaged food break down, threatening the astronauts’ health. All of this justifies the current research on cultivating plants in space.

Ongoing international efforts in this domain include growing dwarf wheat and a variety of small flowering plants related to the cabbage family in the Advanced Plant Habitat of the ISS; germinating cotton seeds on the Moon during China’s Chang’e 4 biosphere experiment; and the European Space Agency’s germination of 2 kg of rocket seeds on the ISS, which also has a Vegetable Production System to study plant growth in microgravity. India—which will soon send its first astronauts to space aboard the Gaganyaan mission—needs to join these efforts to gain much-needed expertise in this field.