Micro-Tina on space mission

FAU researchers are studying food sources for tomorrow's space travelers

As humanity sets out to explore the vast expanses of space, astronauts will spend many months in spaceships on their way to foreign planets, feeding themselves with selfgrown food. Important developments for this could be provided by an experiment by researchers from the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) on board the European research satellite Eu: CROPIS - built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) - on Wednesday, 3^rd of December 2018, with a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California launches into space.

The research team, consisting of the FAU biologist PD Dr. med. Michael Lebert and his research group Jens Hauslage from the DLR wants to find out whether people can feed themselves even at lower gravity and the questions and problems that astronauts have collected so far on their rather short space flights - Where should the drinking water come from for such a long journey? Where to go with the urine? Can the astronauts grow their own vegetables? - are this questions solvable?

So they will send twelve tomato seeds into orbit aboard the research satellite Eu: CROPIS on 3^rd  of December to investigate whether they will grow in a closed ecosystem - consisting of a water tank, a greenhouse, an algae container and a filter apparatus – to find out, if they can bear fruits on a low weight in orbit.

The seeds and later the plants are fertilized every few days with urine, in this case - for lack of passengers - with artificial urine. In the urine is urea, which decomposes into ammonia; A filter turns it into nitrate, which acts as a fertilizer for the plants. If the filter fails to work, Euglena gracilis cells absorb some of it and protect the system from too much ammonia. The idea of ​​the system is to use a waste material to produce fresh food. The water in the urine is evaporated by the tomatoes and can be recovered from the air in a pure form; you do not have to pack up fertilizer, which is very important if you have to pay attention to every gram and can pack only the essentials.

The barrel-shaped compact satellite, measuring about one meter in height and one meter in diameter and will rotate in orbit about 600 kilometers around its own axis. As a result, gravity is generated inside, similar to the chain carousel, where you are pressed into the seat. The scientists want to simulate gravitation from the moon and then six months of Mars gravity for six months.

By the way, "Micro-Tina" goes on the journey, this is a type of tomato that grows fast but remains compact and produces fruits that also taste good. "It's especially important that the astronauts, who depend on dry food for so long, also get something fresh," says Michael Lebert. And maybe Micro-Tina will eventually thrive in a greenhouse on the Red Planet.

The base plate on which the electronic components were fastened is made of high-tech material ZELLAMID^® 1500 X (PEEK) from Zell-Metall GMBH Engineering Plastics, manufactured in headquater Kaprun.

(Image and text with kind permission of FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)