Plants For Space

Australian Virtual Astronaut Challenge

Grow for Launch

Preparing for a lunar growth mission!

The challenge:

  • Complete a scientific investigation of plants grown without soil and in different nutrient concentrations.
  • Re-think the design of the growth chamber and nutrient and light conditions for optimal growth.
  • Complete a food sensory test to help think about what makes food enjoyable.
  • Create a delicious plant-based recipe based on your produce.
  • Extended Challenge: Design your own solution using the iSTEM framework!

Includes the Grow for Launch Kit

  • Coriander seeds
  • Tweezers
  • Gyrosnaps –  a substrate-free reusable plant growth system
  • Hydrogel
  • Dropper
  • Nutrients –  Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphate.
  • Test strips
  • Mission sticker

You will need to provide two soft drink bottles with wide openings (34mm).

Partners

Grow for Launch logo showing a strawberry plant gerowing out of a beaker
ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space

Steps 

Control the variables, measure the results

Steps:

  • Read “Growing Plants in Space” in the resource pack
  • Follow the Experiment Method to test your hypothesis.
  • Record everything you do. Use the Mission Report to record your hypothesis and data
  • Use your data to see if your Hypothesis is correct
  • Log your data with Grow for Launch Mission Control

Join the Grow for Launch!

About Plants for Space 

The ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space is an international research consortium building novel solutions for long-term space habitation and on-Earth sustainability. This diverse team brings together a wide range of researchers in disciplines across plant science, nutrition, food science, engineering, psychology and space law.
The goal is to re-imagine plant design and bioresource production through the lens of space. Through four missions, Plants for Space paves the way for off-Earth habitation while delivering innovative solutions that enhance sustainability on Earth.
  1. Complete nutrition from plant-based foods.
  2. Zero waste optimised for control environments.
  3. On-demand bioresource production.
  4. Future-ready workforce and society.
A scinetist using a pipette

Learn more about the importance of Plants for Space with Dr Frazer Thorpe

Dr. Frazer Thorpe, the Education and Engagement Manager for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space (P4S).

He discusses the work P4S is doing across multiple Universities and collaborators on the Artemis III LEAF project, which is part of the mission to grow the first plants on the surface of the Moon.

 

Option:

Exolab

The ExoLab system can be purchased but is not required!

ExoLab is a network of science laboratories that connect Schools, Science Centers, Libraries, and Museums around the world. Just like payloads that goes to destinations like the International Space Station, your ExoLab is just 10cm x 10cm x 20cm. In Grow for Launch, ExoLab can help you record detailed information about your experiment.

In your ExoLab, we track and measure different conditions, such as how hot or cold it is (temperature), how wet or dry it is (humidity), how much light there is (lux level), and how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is present. There is a camera in the lab that takes a picture every hour. The images from this camera and the data from these measurements are then shown together. You can compare the information from your lab to other labs all over the world.

Perhaps you will design and build your own lab in the AVA design challenge?

Find out more

Learn more

Listen as experiment lead Ted Tegami from Magnitude.io and Ben Newsome from Fizzics Education talk about the Simple Seeds experiment.

ExoLab engineering drawing