Preparing Plants For Space

Jess Bunchek, a veggie plant scientist and pseudonaut, harvests mizuna mustard inside the Veggie harvest chamber in the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
This was done as part of the Experiment Verification Test for the VEG-04B mission that will launch to the International Space Station later this year. VEG-04B examines the interactions between light and spaceflight by growing plants under two different LED lighting conditions.

A similar harvest will be conducted on the space station after a grow-out duration of 56 days. Ultimately, fresh vegetables grown in space will be an essential supplement to the crew’s pre-packaged diet, prepping them for long-duration space exploration.

Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Larger image