Advanced plant Habitat: A derivation of NASA info : Overview

 Advanced Plant Habitat!!!!!!!!

The Advanced plant habitat is a fully automated facility that will be used to conduct plant bioscience research on the International Space station. The system was developed by NASA and ORBITEC. The systems components are managed by and processed for flight at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Located in the Kibo module on the ISS, the APH was designed for a 10-year mission for colleting physiological data of plant responses to the spaceflight environment.

This data will improve our understanding of how terrestrial biology responds to reduced gravity which is useful for enabling the manned exploration of space.

Advanced Plant habitat components:

Structural mounting assembly 

Air Filtration Assembly 

Plant habitat facility kits 

Science carrier

Growth chamber 

Environmental control system

Fluid International Subrack Interface Standard Drawer

Orbital component unit component drawer

Growth light assembly 

It's a fully enclosed, closed-loop plant life support system with an environmetally controlled growth chamber designed for conducing both fundamental and applied plant research during experiments extending as long as 135 days. It was delivered to the ISS in parts aboard two commercial resupply missions: 

* OA-7 in April 2017

* SpaceX-11 in June 2017

It was assembled and installed in the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo in November 2018.

Features examined to control light intensity, spectral quality, humidity, CO2 concentration, photoperiod, temperature, and root zone moisture using commanding from ground facilities at the Kennedy Space Center.

Test also demonstrated the execution of programmed experiment profiles that scheduled:

1- Changes in Environmental combinations

2- Predetermined photographic events using the three APH cameras [ overhead, sideview, and sideview near-infrared [(NIR)]

3 - Execution of Experimental Sequences during the life cycle of a crop - measure photosynthetic CO2 drawdown experiments. 

Arabidopsis and wheat were grown in microgravity to demonstrate crew procedures, planting protocols and watering schemes within APH.

* What is wheat canopy?

It was also used to validate the ability of APH to measure gas exchange of plants from non-invasive gas exchange measurements (i.e canopy photosynthesis and respiration).

Let's see about the radish harvest in our next blog which bags this concept!!!!!!!!!