Space Lab Technologies

The purpose of Space Lab is to sustainably advance human space exploration through space science research and technology development.

Created: 2021-07-28

Updated: 2024-07-09

Classification

Miscellaneous

Category

Space Suits & Garments
Space Architecture

Fields

Food for Space
Space Architecture Office
Medicine and Drugs

Status

Concept

First launch

Not announced

• µG-LilyPond™ - Growth Chamber for Microgravity
• MarsOasis® - Martian Greenhouse
• The Exploration Spacesuit - or Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU)
• Space Architecture

Space Crop Production Systems

Space Lab® Café is a compact vertical farm that continuously produces a variety of nutritious produce with minimal water, power, waste or processing time. It operates with or without gravity, in a Lunar, Martian or spacecraft habitat, while providing farm-to-table solutions for Earth’s urban centers or remote, harsh environments.

Space Lab LEAF Experiment Selected for Artemis III Lunar Mission

In March 2024, Space Lab announced that the company has been selected to develop LEAF, a plant science experiment for NASA’s Artemis III Lunar mission.

The Artemis III Deployed Instruments (A3DI) call solicited instrument suites to conduct high-priority science investigations that can be uniquely accomplished by human deployment of payloads on the surface of the Moon. LEAF, which stands for Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora, will study how the Lunar environment affects the germination and growth of plants that may be used to feed astronauts of the future.

Human nutrition and life support (carbon dioxide removal, oxygen production, and water purification) provided by space agriculture will enable long-duration human exploration of the moon and beyond. Plant biology research on the Lunar surface is needed to understand the effects of partial gravity and space radiation on crop physiology and to demonstrate the potential for sustained, off-planet propagation.

The LEAF β (“LEAF Beta”) payload will protect plants within from excessive Lunar sunlight, radiation, and the vacuum of space, while observing their photosynthesis, growth, and responses to stress.

The experiment includes a plant growth chamber with an isolated atmosphere, housing red and green varieties of Brassica rapa (Wisconsin Fast Plants®), Wolffia (duckweed), and Arabidopsis thaliana. By bringing seedling samples back to Earth, as part of Artemis III, the research team will apply advanced system biology tools to study physiological responses at a molecular level.

Only one other payload has studied plants on the moon; the 2019 Chinese Chang’e 4 mission provided a picture of a 4-day old cotton sprout then suffered thermal control failure. The Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora (LEAF) research will provide the first, comprehensive assessment of organism-wide effects of the Lunar environment, reducing risks for sustainable off-planet crop production and bioregenerative life support.