A commercial greenhouse will be launched into space next spring in what is being billed as a crucial step for NASA’s Artemis program and eventual lunar colony. The Artemis Program is widely considered the first necessary step in helping humans become multiplanetary.
NASA’s Artemis I mission is currently scheduled to launch on August 29. This first launch is an unmanned test to assess the safety of the Orion rocket and spacecraft, which will eventually carry astronauts to the lunar surface. The rocket will send Orion into orbit around the Moon, where it will remain for six days before returning to Earth, hopefully unscathed.
NASA plans to launch a series of manned lunar missions culminating in the creation of a long-term lunar base, which scientists see as a necessary step before a similar human habitat can be built on Mars. But before Artemis can establish astronauts on the surface of the moon for any significant period of time, they will need to secure a means of producing food there, as transporting enough of it quickly would become prohibitive.
In a major step toward solving this problem, Redwire Corporation announced this week that it is developing the first commercial greenhouse designed to grow crops from seed to maturity in non-terrestrial environments. Although astronauts aboard the space station have a small space garden, known as Veggie, it can only grow six plants at a time and is designed to help scientists better understand whether plants can grow in orbit rather than an important food source for the ISS residents. Instead, the Rewire Greenhouse focuses on realizing the human ability to grow crops outside of Earth and feed astronauts on deep space missions. Dave Reed, director of operations for the Redwire Florida launch site and director of the greenhouse project, says that “growing whole crops in space will be critical to future space exploration missions, as plants provide food, oxygen and water recovery Increasing the throughput of crop production research in space, through commercially developed capabilities, will be important in providing critical knowledge for NASA’s Artemis missions and beyond.
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