The International Space Station's (ISS) longest plant experiment in history has come to an end, with astronauts onboard the flying laboratory harvesting the second batch of chilly grown beyond Earth. Mark Vande Hei, the flight engineer harvested 26 chilly peppers grown from four plants in the orbiting laboratory’s Plant Habitat-04.
Vande Hei set a new record for the most astronauts fed from a space-grown crop.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center official Twitter account on December 1 posted pictures of the crop grown in zero gravity.
"These peppers are breaking records! The longest plant experiment in the history of the @Space_Station ended recently, 137 days after it began," read the tweet.
"PH-04 significantly advanced the state-of-the-art in space crop production. We took a field cultivar of a Hatch chilly pepper from New Mexico, dwarfed it to fit inside the plant habitat,
and figured out how to productively grow the first generally recognised fruiting crop in space all in a matter of years," said Matt Romeyn, PH-04's principal investigator.
Megan McArthur, a flight engineer on Expedition 65, used the peppers in a special taco meal.12 of the peppers were prepared for a return trip to Earth, and the rest were eaten by the crew,
who then provided feedback on it.
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The experiment began in June with the launch of a science carrier containing 48 sanitised pepper seeds to the space station, which were then inserted in the habitat on July 12 by astronaut
Shane Kimbrough. The astronauts did hands-on work during the experiment, including removing all but four of the germinated plants and giving each plant enough room to grow in a total area about the size of a large microwave
oven, according to Nasa.
Scientists on ground, controlled the conditions inside the APH while astronauts monitored the physical aspect of the experiment on the Station. The plants sprouted after a few weeks. To
disperse pollen, the team had to use the habitat's fans at various speeds, and astronauts had to do some pollination by hand.
Scientists are planning to grow more edible crops in space after the success of the PH-04 experiment and the harvest of healthy chilly. Dwarf tomatoes and new types of leafy greens are next on the list as the team prepares to grow microgreens, legumes, and herbs on the space station.