4 research outputs found
Introducing EDEN ISS - A European project on advancing plant cultivation technologies and operations
Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key
technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified
or remain in early stages of development. The EDEN ISS project foresees
development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for
future deployment on the International Space Station and from a long-term
perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium will design
and test essential plant cultivation technologies using an International Standard
Payload Rack form factor cultivation system for potential testing on-board the
International Space Station. Furthermore, a Future Exploration Greenhouse will be
designed with respect to future planetary bio-regenerative life support system
deployments. The technologies will be tested in a laboratory environment as well as
at the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III. A small and mobile
container-sized test facility will be built in order to provide realistic mass flow
relationships. In addition to technology development and validation, food safety and
plant handling procedures will be developed. This paper describes the goals and
objectives of EDEN ISS and the different project phases and milestones.
Furthermore, the project consortium will be introduced and the role of each partner
within the project is explained
EDEN ISS: A SIMULATION TESTBED TO AN ADVANCED XPLORATION DESIGN CONCEPT FOR A GREENHOUSE FOR MOON AND MARS
This paper takes the EDEN ISS project as example to demonstrate how findings from greenhouse tests and a 12-
month mission simulation in Antarctica can inform the design for a future lunar or Martian exploration greenhouse
and presents design solutions. EDEN ISS, a four-year EU-H2020 project coordinated by the German Aerospace
Center Bremen, is a Ground Demonstration of Plant Cultivation Technologies for Safe Food Production in Space.
EDEN ISS project partners developed an advanced nutrient delivery system, a high-performance LED lighting
system, a bio-detection and decontamination system and food quality and safety procedures and technologies. A
mobile two-container-sized greenhouse test facility was built to demonstrate and validate different key technologies
and procedures necessary for safe food production within a (semi-)closed system. EDEN ISS is currently installed
next to the German Neumayer Station III in Antarctica and serves as an over-winter-test-bed for providing fresh
vegetables to the crew's diet. Intermediate outcomes from the Antarctic test include engineering, technology and
crew experience facts and will inform the extra-terrestrial greenhouse design.
The paper outlines the current research and expedition status and references design concepts for exploration
greenhouses which are relevant to the further development of EDEN ISS into a concept for future mission
exploration on the moon and on Mars. The reference examples will serve as input to the concurrent design study
planned for January 2019 where the team around DLR, Thales Alenia Space and LIQUIFER Systems Group will
convene to finalise the EDEN ISS project from a future perspective point of view. They will look at integrating
lessons learnt for architectural aspects, system performance, crop yield, crew acceptance and contamination.
Concurrent engineering, used as methodology, will support the synthesis of the findings and at the same time will
ensure the reflection of this information in the design proposals
GREENHOUSE DESIGN CONCEPTS FOR MOON AND MARS
This paper will show the methodology used for developing a greenhouse design concept for moon and Mars, derived
from the EDEN ISS simulation facility in Antarctica. This document details the preliminary design of a future planetary
greenhouse, adapted from the Mobile Test Facility (MTF) which was built and operated as part of the EDEN ISS
project. Lessons learned from the Antarctic operations phase, as well as references to existing mission scenarios were
considered for establishing system requirements. Based on these requirements, a preliminary design of the greenhouse
structure, and plant cultivation subsystems was developed.
The preliminary design presented in this document is a deployable cylindrical structure, with rigid end caps and an
inflatable membrane shell. The structure has been sized to fit within the payload fairing of a Falcon 9 launcher (or
similar), with a stowed configuration diameter of 4 meters and a length of 6.3 meters. Following deployment, the
structure is envisioned to be 12.9 meters long and the membrane shell will expand to a diameter of 5 meters. An
estimation of the subsystem volumes was made in order to design the internal configuration. This internal layout offers
30.8 m² of cultivation area, a more than twofold increase over the existing Mobile Test Facility. Differences and
similarities between the two facilities are discussed