State-of-the-art Plant Growth Chamber for Conducting Commercial Plant Research in Microgravity

摘要

Conduct of plant research to assess the impact of microgravity on plant growth and development requires a plant growth unit that has the capability to provide totally controlled environment in the plant chamber. Since plants are sensitive to a number of atmospheric gaseous materials, the plant chamber atmosphere must be isolated from the space vehi8cle atmosphere and the plant growth unit must also be capable of removing any deleterious materials that may impact plant growth and development. Advanced ASTROCULTURE~(TM) (ADVASC), a space-based plant growth unit based on proven ASTROCULTURE~(TM) technology, has been developed by the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to take advantage of plant research opportunities during the early assembly phase of International Space Station (ISS) when ISS resources and up/down mass availability would be very limited. ADVASC provides a completely enclosed, environmentally controlled plant growth chamber to support commercially oriented and/or fundamental plant research for time duration of several months in reduced gravity environment.