New Delhi: NASA is sending plant growth system to International Space Station that will help astronauts grow their own food in space during the missions.
The new plant system will this month join Veggie - NASA's first fresh food growth system already active on ISS.
The Advanced Plant Habitat will be used to conduct plant bioscience research on the space station, NASA said.
Arabidopsis seeds, small flowering plants related to cabbage and mustard, have been growing in the prototype habitat, and will be the first plant experiment, called PH-01, grown in the chamber aboard the space station.
The new plant habitat is a fully enclosed, closed-loop system with an environmentally controlled growth chamber, said Bryan Onate, project manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre.
It uses red, blue and green LED lights, and broad spectrum white LED lights.
The system's more than 180 sensors will relay real-time information, including temperature, oxygen content and moisture levels (in the air and soil, near the plant roots, and at the stem and leaf level), back to the team at Kennedy.
(With PTI inputs)
