Spectral Imaging within EDEN ISS for Plant Health and Productivity Assessment

Kurzfassung

EDEN ISS is a large multinational project, headed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), to advance controlled environment agriculture and life support technologies. The project draws upon and extends lessons from the International Space Station (ISS), and places those lessons within a ground demonstration module deployed at the Neumayer III Antarctic station. EDEN ISS focusses on cultivation technologies for two exploration applications: spaceflight deployment within a module that allows simulation of safe food production on-board the ISS, and for utilization in future human space exploration vehicles and planetary outposts. These overall project goals connect the planetary surface analog concepts to near term operations of ISS and potential cis-lunar habitats. In addition to providing fresh produce to Neumayer Station III overwintering crews, the system will validate key plant growth system technologies and operational protocols for bioregenerative life support systems, while exploring science that may enhance these aims through remote monitoring of plant health, growth and development. Among the technologies to be developed and deployed will be imagers based on GoPro cameras modified to collect multi-wavelength data to equip the plant growth systems with the capacity to evaluate variations of Differential Vegetation Indices, a technology primarily restricted to the sunlight driven satellite-based uses of Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI). The use of NDVI-like approaches in systems like EDEN ISS that are highly controlled, especially for lighting inputs, is just beginning to be explored. The imaging project involves an integrated science backroom that will remotely assess the images and provide input to the plant production team on site. Project concepts and the development of NDVI like imaging with EDEN-ISS will be presented with a focus on the initial images that have examined differential pixel math specifically to anticipate stress responses prior to typical visible changes. The participation of ALP, JAC and RJF is supported by grants to RJF and ALP from NASA Space Life and Physical Sciences through KSC (including 17-NUP2017-0020) and the Florida Space Grant Consortium (UF NNX15 TO 016).