Feasibility Study: Vertical Farm EDEN

Hundreds of millions of people around the world do not have access to sufficient food. With the global population continuing to increase, the global food output will need to drastically increase to meet demands. At the same time, the amount of land suitable for agriculture is finite, so it is not possibly to meet the growing demand by simply increasing the use of land. Thus, to be able to feed the entire global population, and continue to do so in the future, it will be necessary to drastically increase the food output per land area. One idea which has been recently discussed in the scientific community is called Vertical Farming (VF), which cultivates food crops on vertically stacked levels in (high-rise) buildings. The Vertical Farm, so it is said, would allow for more food production in a smaller area. Additionally, a Vertical Farm could be situated in any place (e.g. Taiga- or desert regions, cities), which would make it possible to reduce the amount of transportation needed to deliver the crops to the supermarkets. The technologies required for the Vertical Farm are well-known and already being used in conventional terrestrial greenhouses, as well as in the designs of bioregenerative Life Support Systems for space missions. However, the economic feasibility of the Vertical Farm, which will determine whether this concept will be developed or not, has not yet been adequately assessed. Through a Concurrent Engineering (CE) process, the DLR Institute for Space Systems (RY) in Bremen, aims to apply its know-how of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Technologies in space systems to provide valuable spin-off projects on Earth and to provide the first engineering study of a Vertical Farm to assess its economic feasibility

Biomass Production of the EDEN ISS Space Greenhouse in Antarctica During the 2018 Experiment Phase

The EDEN ISS greenhouse is a space-analog test facility near the German Neumayer III station in Antarctica. The facility is part of the project of the same name and was designed and built starting from March 2015 and eventually deployed in Antarctica in January 2018. The nominal operation of the greenhouse started on February 7th and continued until the 20th of November. The purpose of the facility is to enable multidisciplinary research on topics related to future plant cultivation on human space exploration missions. Research on food quality and safety, plant health monitoring, microbiology, system validation, human factors and horticultural sciences was conducted. Part of the latter is the determination of the biomass production of the different crops. The data on this topic is presented in this paper. During the first season 26 different crops were grown on the 12.5 m2 cultivation area of the greenhouse. A large number of crops were grown continuously throughout the 9 months of operation, but there were also crops that were only grown a few times for test purposes. The focus of this season was on growing lettuce, leafy greens and fresh vegetables. In total more than 268 kg of edible biomass was produced by the EDEN ISS greenhouse facility in 2018. Most of the harvest was cucumbers (67 kg), lettuces (56 kg), leafy greens (49 kg), and tomatoes (50 kg) complemented with smaller amounts of herbs (12 kg), radish (8 kg), and kohlrabi (19 kg). The environmental set points for the crops were 330–600 µmol/(m2∗s) LED light, 21◦C, ∼65% relative humidity, 1000 ppm and the photoperiod was 17 h per day. The overall yearly productivity of the EDEN ISS greenhouse in 2018 was 27.4 kg/m2, which is equal to 0.075 kg/(m2∗d). This paper shows in detail the data on edible and inedible biomass production of each crop grown in the EDEN ISS greenhouse in Antarctica during the 2018 season

Service Section Design of the EDEN ISS Project

The international EDEN ISS project aims to investigate and validate techniques for plant cultivation in future bioregenerative life support systems. To this end the EDEN ISS project partners aim to design and build the Mobile Test Facility, which consists of two modified 20 foot shipping containers. One of these shipping containers is designated the Service Section and houses the bulk of the subsystem components, such as the Air Management System and Nutrient Delivery System, as well as a rack-sized plant cultivation system, which uses a standard International Space Station payload form factor. The subsystems within the Service Section ensure that the approximately 12.5 m² of cultivation area in the second container, the Future Exploration Greenhouse, have the proper environmental conditions, nutrients and illumination for optimal crop growth. The EDEN ISS project concluded its main design phase with a Critical Design Review in March 2016, thereafter proceeded into the hardware development and procurement phase of the project. This paper describes the final design of the Service Section at the start of the assembly, integration and testing phase, which will run until the complete Mobile Test Facility is shipped to Antarctica, where it arrives in December 2017, for a 12 month space analogue mission

Summary and Evaluation of the EDEN ISS Public Outreach Activities

EDEN ISS is a European project focused on advancing bio-regenerative life support systems, in particular plant cultivation in space. A mobile test facility was designed and built between March 2015 and October 2017. The facility incorporates a Service Section which houses several subsystems necessary for plant cultivation and the Future Exploration Greenhouse. The latter is built similar to a future space greenhouse and provides a fully controlled environment for plant cultivation. The facility was setup in Antarctica in January 2018 and successfully operated between February and November of the same year. During that nine month period around 270 kg of food was produced by the crops cultivation in the greenhouse. It is the wish and more often the need for scientific projects to communicate their outcomes not only to the scientific community, but also to the general public. The EDEN ISS project and in particular the experimental phase in Antarctica was accompanied by extensive public outreach activities. Presence in social media, a project website, informative flyers, an experimental toolkit for young students were created in order to engage with the general public. This paper describes the different public outreach activities of the project and also evaluates their effectiveness. For the evaluation, statistics from the website and social media accounts as well as responses to press releases and educational activities are being displayed. Based on the experience from the outreach campaign of EDEN ISS, the paper provides recommendations on how to organize and conduct public outreach activities for scientific projects in space exploratio

Implications of different plant cultivation techniques for food production in space based on experiments in EDEN I

The EDEN ISS greenhouse is a space-analogue test facility near the German Neumayer III station in Antarctica. The facility is part of the project of the same name and was designed and built since 2015 and eventually deployed in Antarctica in January 2018. The first operational phase of the greenhouse started on February the 7th and continued until the 20th of November 2018. The purpose of the facility is to enable multidisciplinary research on topics related to future plant cultivation on human space exploration missions. Research on food quality and safety, plant health monitoring, microbiology, system validation, human factors and horticultural sciences was conducted. Part of the latter was an experiment to compare different plant cultivation techniques for lettuce and tomato plants. For lettuce two different harvest methods were applied, either batch harvesting of the fully grown lettuce heads or spread harvesting of mature leaves while leaving the plant alive to allow regrowth. The dwarf tomato plants were cultivated for three different durations. The short growth cycle ended right after the first set of fruits were harvested. The plants were then terminated and new plants sown. The longest duration cultivation involved several pruning events were old stems and leaves were removed from the plants allowing regrowth of new shoots. This paper compares the impact of the different cultivation techniques on the biomass output, the required crewtime and the required energy. The results show that depending on whether the goal is to optimize for highest biomass production, lowest energy demand or lowest crewtime demand some cultivation techniques are more favorable than others

Highlights 2019 - Yearly status report EDEN Initiative

Almost exactly four years (March 2015 to May 2019) was the duration of the EDEN ISS project. Four years of intensive work, ups and downs - but all rewarded with the succesfull deployment of the research greenhouse in Antarctica. These four years pushed the EDEN group to a new level by establishing essential know-how, not only on a technical level also through the operational aspects of managing a multinational analogue mission with 15 partners from 8 countries. As the EDEN ISS container remains in Antarctica, the research and testing will continue. The year 2019 also marked an important year for the EDEN group by establishing its pathway to planetary system deployment. With the EDEN ISS NEXT design, the group established a first baseline design for future space greenhouse systems. Transferring space-rated systems to terrestrial applications was always one of the main goals of the EDEN group. With the new MEPA system and the upcoming development project, the group will design a rapid deployable food production system for crisis scenarios. The official grand opening of the educational Botanika exhibition was an important milestone for the public engagement activities of the EDEN group. The exhibit will remain a permanent part of the visitor center of the Botanika, establishing a useful communication tool for the coming years. The EDEN team looks confidently to the future as its development pathway for creating bioregenerative life support systems continues. The operation of the Antarctic research platform EDEN ISS will generate useful knowledge on the operational challenges of these systems

Energy and Power Demand of Food Production in Space based on Results of the EDEN ISS Antarctic Greenhouse

The EDEN ISS greenhouse is a space-analogue test facility near the German Neumayer III station in Antarctica. The facility is part of the project of the same name and was designed and built since 2015 and eventually deployed in Antarctica in January 2018. The first operational phase of the greenhouse started on February the 7th and continued until the 20th of November 2018. The purpose of the facility is to enable multidisciplinary research on topics related to future plant cultivation on human space exploration missions. Research on food quality and safety, plant health monitoring, microbiology, system validation, human factors, horticultural sciences and resource demand were conducted. Part of the latter were measurements of the electrical energy and power demand. Those measurements were conducted on the facility and subsystem level, which were complemented by determining the demand of single components like LED lamps at different illumination settings. This paper describes the electrical energy and power demand during the experiment season between February and November 2018. Furthermore, the impact of these results on designing and planning future plant cultivation system in space are evaluated

Highlights 2020 - Yearly status report EDEN Initiative

What a year, what a year! Who would have thought this?! The year 2020 marked the beginning of a global pandemic that impacted all areas of social- and professional life. Beginning of mid-March, DLR went into a complete lock-down, followed only by partial reopening during summer, entering a soft lock-down again in winter 2020. Although these extreme circumstances were not favourable, the operation of the EDEN ISS facility in Antarctica continued successfully, and multiple new research projects were initiated by the group throughout the year. Most notable is the collaborative science mission of NASA and DLR to jointly operate the EDEN ISS greenhouse. In December 2020, NASA scientist Jess Bunchek travelled to Antarctica. She operates the facility for the isolation campaign in 2021. A multifaceted research programme was worked out between NASA and the EDEN group, which includes e.g. cultivar testing, and crew time measurements. The year 2020 also marked a milestone for the EDEN group, by outlining the research and development goals for the next decade. The DLR roadmap for the development of bio-regenerative life support systems was officially published. The plan foresees the development of a 1:1 life support module by the year 2025 that will allow to test key cultivation technologies already on space-rated system design level. This will push the courageous ambition to have a flight-ready design by 2030 for a possible Moon deployment scenario

Highlights 2018 - Yearly status report EDEN Initiative

With 60 days of deployment work, 257 days of isolation, more than 20 experiments, more than 15 system- and procedure tests – the EDEN ISS analogue mission clearly served as the main event during the year 2018. Starting with the sea ice offloading procedure of the Mobile Test Facility at the Atka bay of the Ekström ice shelf (Antarctica), the long-planned mission could finally start on January 3rd, 2018. Throughout the isolation phase, Paul Zabel produced over 275 kg of fresh food for the isolated Neumayer Station III crew and worked himself through a demanding and multifaceted science program. Useful data was generated and the lessons-learnt will further push the knowledge base on how to build and operate future greenhouse systems on Moon and Mars. As AWI and DLR agreed to further operate the Mobile Test Facility even after the H2020 project will come to an end, 2018 marks only the initial year of the group’s analogue testing at the Neumayer Station III. With the analogue mission running, 2018 marked an exceptional year for communicating the group’s scientific and technological objectives to the public. This was done through the successful organization of press conferences, exhibits, TV documentaries, radio interviews, and countless articles in print- and online media. The dedicated exhibition ‘Plants in Space’ also took shape, as the EDEN group in collaboration with its partners (Bock Bioscience, Botanika) defined, built and tested the main exhibition elements. The exhibit will have its opening in June 2019 within the botanical garden of Bremen, displaying the latest research results of the EDEN group with respect to future food production on Moon/Mars and Earth. With respect to scientific dissemination, the EDEN group helped to organize the AGROSPACE 2018 workshop in Rome - this time as a joint event with the MELiSSA group of ESA. With over 200 conference participants, the conference clearly set a new record compared to past AGROSPACE workshops. As already long-planned, at the end of the Antarctic deployment mission, Dr. Matthew Bamsey left the EDEN Group and moved back to his home country Canada. From here, he pursues his career in the space domain with the space exploration division of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Matt helped to essentially build up the EDEN group, including the EDEN laboratory, he supervised numerous students, and he was chief systems engineer for the EDEN ISS project. The whole EDEN team wishes him success for his future career path! I personally want to thank Matt for his great work and I am confident that our paths will cross again, as future collaborations between CSA and DLR are envisioned

Highlights 2016 - Yearly status report EDEN Initiative

SpaceX founder Elon Musk outlines his plans for a human presence on Mars, ESA pushes its ambitions for an international Moon village, and DLR establishes the Orbital Hub concept as a possible ISS successor. In this sense, 2016 marked an outstanding year for human spaceflight. The EDEN team contributed to these ambitions with technical solutions and paved the way on the political agenda in the same motivated manner like the years before. The EDEN ISS project gained speed and the successful development of various systems was accomplished. The Critical Design Review marked an important milestone, and in September, the Mobile Test Facility was delivered to DLR for the Assembly, Integration, and Test phase. Paul Zabel, who will live for one year in Antarctica, received basic training on hydroponic plant cultivation and treatment at our EDEN ISS partner University of Wageningen (NL). This way the EDEN team is prepared for the space analogue mission to Antarctica in 2018. Another highlight was the continued progress within the DLR internal project C.R.O.P, where tomatoes were successfully tested in the lab’s clean room with the dedicated urine-based nutrient solution. This joint research project between DLR-RY and DLR-ME will further push the boundaries of Bio-regenerative Life Support Systems. Establishing a clear political agenda and pushing for more international collaboration is essential in the space sector and is actively pursued by the EDEN team. Here, the White Paper could officially be published, after two years of coordination under the lead of the EDEN group. This unique position paper outlines the strategic roadmap of the space agriculture community. Like two years ago, the EDEN team assisted in the organization of the AGROSPACE event together with AeroSekur and the University of Arizona. Preceding the conference the team organized the European-Chinese Collaboration Workshop on Closed-loop Technologies for Space, Antarctica and Urban Areas. Leading experts from China, Germany and European industry participated in several collaboration events, held in Bremen and Sperlonga. 2016 was a very successful year with increasing publications, further won projects for system developments and outreach purposes. The EDEN team is confident to continue this pathway into 2017 in order to foster humanity’s plan for space exploration and to establish a human presence in our solar system beyond Earth