New Technologies for Enabling Food Production Beyond LEO

NASA has identified the need for robust and sustainable Pick-and-Eat systems for supplementing crew diets with fresh leafy green crops in near-term LEO (Low Earth Orbit), cislunar, and lunar missions. Spaceflight plant growth systems have been primarily designed for conducting space biology studies, but these systems are not optimal for sustained food production. Improved water and nutrient delivery subsystems that do not use bulky and non-reusable media are needed for decreasing the mass of the food production system. Autonomous technologies for monitoring plant health and food safety are needed for ensuring that the food produced is suitable supplementing crew diets with fresh, nutritious salad crops. Improved plant imaging techniques used for high-throughput phenotyping can be leveraged for monitoring plant health. Near-real-time measurements of the microbial ecology of food production systems are needed for assessing food safety. Furthermore, newly identified plant species and cultivars with improved growth habits and contents of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals when grown in spaceflight environmental conditions are needed. These improvements in food production technologies will enable the design of sustainable life support systems for manned exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit

G254: USU student payload flown on STS-64 in September, 1994

G254 is the culmination of USU Get Away Special (GAS) students' efforts to get back into space. After a hiatus of a decade, the USU GAS program flew its sixth canister on STS-64 in September 1994. Like its predecessor payloads, this one contained a diverse set of experiments, six in all. Each experiment has its own lessons learned, which hopefully can be passed on to the next generation of GAS students. This presentation will give a balanced view of the successes and failures of G254. Emphasis will be placed on describing the stumbling blocks and the many lessons learned that come from experience rather than academic training. G254 has once again taken a team of about fifteen USU students, plus about one hundred fourth and fifth graders, and given them an immeasurable education

New Frontiers in Food Production Beyond LEO

New technologies will be needed as mankind moves towards exploration of cislunar space, the Moon and Mars. Although many advances in our understanding of the effects of spaceflight on plant growth have been achieved in the last 40 years, spaceflight plant growth systems have been primarily designed to support space biology studies. Recently, the need for a sustainable and robust food system for future missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has identified gaps in current technologies for food production. The goal is to develop safe and sustainable food production systems with reduced resupply mass and crew time compared to current systems

FY17 Report Summaries of Five Completed Center Innovation Fund (CIF) Projects for the Highlights/Abstract Section of the FY 2018 CIF Annual Report

The Center Innovation Fund Annual Report for FY18 is an annual report for Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Leadership, STMD Principle Technologists, and Center Innovation Fund Management. Attached is the Highlights/Abstract section of this annual report, which is the only section to be shared outside of NASA. Contributors were asked not to include any SBU information for these report summaries

Hardware Validation Test of the Advanced Plant Habitat

An automated plant growth facility for conducting plant research supporting space biology and food production project on the International Space Station (ISS)

Effects of Elevated CO2 on Crop Growth Rates, Radiation Absorption, Canopy Quantum Yield, Canopy Carbon Use Efficiency, and Root Respiration of Wheat

Wheat canopies were grown at either 330 or 1200 μmol mol-1 CO2 in sealed controlled environments, where carbon fluxes and radiation interception were continuously and nondestructively measured during their life cycles. The effects of elevated CO2 on daily growth rates, canopy quantum yield, canopy and root carbon use efficiencies, and final dry mass were calculated from carbon flux measurements in an open gas exchange system. Dry biomass at harvest was predicted from the gas exchange data to within ± 8%. The greatest effect of elevated CO2 occurred in the first 15d after emergence; however, several physiological processes were enhanced throughout the life cycle. Elevated CO2 increased average net photosynthesis by 30%, average shoot respiration by 10%, and average root respiration by 40%. Crop growth rate, calculated from gas exchange data, was 30% higher during both vegetative growth and reproductive growth. Elevated CO 2 did not affect radiation interception, but increased average canopy quantum yield from 0.039 to 0.051 (31%). Average canopy carbon use efficiency was increased by 12%. Although harvest index was unaffected, these increases in the physiological determinants of yield by elevated CO2 resulted in a 14% increase in seed yield

Field Programmable Gate Array Implementation of a Motherboard for Data Communications and Networking Protocols

Reconfigurable devices, such as the field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), have provided electrical, electronics and computer engineers with a versatile and costeffective platform for designing circuits, developing devices and implementing electronic, communications, computer and other related systems. Presented in this paper is the use of FPGA in the development of a motherboard to introduce the concepts of data and network communications protocol through different interfaces. Some of the protocols implemented are VGA, PS/2, serial communications and parallel communications. Since the motherboard is FPGA-based, it can be reconfigured to perform other protocols making it open to a lot of possibilities

How Does Water Delivery System Design Impact the Microbial Load of Salad Crops?

In a microgravity setting, such as the environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS), an ideal plant water delivery system is one that can grow edible crops with minimal resource consumption and minimal risk to crew members. There are also concerns associated with the ability to control fluid escape and biofilm formation resulting in potential dangers to systems, crops, or crewmembers. To identify an appropriate system, candidate systems were assembled and operated under simulated ISS environmental conditions (T,CO2,and RH) with red romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa cultivar 'Outredgeous') as a model crop. Fluid reservoirs and randomly selected planting sites were sampled every seven days until maturity at which point edible plant biomass and root samples were also taken. Heterotrophic bacteria and fungi growth patterns throughout each planting cycle were determined by plate counts on appropriate agar media. The candidate systems were compared to a classic hydroponics system as a control and harvested crops were compared to controls as well as Veggie-grown and market produce. Plants harvested from candidate systems yielded lower average heterotrophic bacteria and fungi per gram of plant mass levels when compared to market and Veggie samples as well as those from the control system. Additional studies to evaluate the system sanitation regimen as well as testing additional crops should be considered to aid in the selection of an ideal system