The EDEN ISS Facility as platform for plant experiments in extreme environments

Abstract

EDEN ISS is an H2020 project aimed at testing key technologies for plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments for a future implementation in space habitats. In this light, a Future Exploration Greenhouse has been designed, developed and deployed at the highly isolated German Neumayer III Antarctic Station to simulate the harsh conditions of an extra planetary outpost mission and test a typical space operation scenario. The greenhouse has been equipped with all the systems to control the environmental parameters (temperature, relative humidity, light intensity, etc.), and to accommodate and feed the plants during their lifecycle. A camera system has been implemented for plant status assessment via remote image analysis. A command and data handling system provides the capability to configure the experimental set points via software, and can be controlled by remote operators. A Mission Control Centre has been realized at DLR for remote monitoring and control of the facility. The MCC receives all the telemetry and the images and can make them available to other centres, which have been included in the operations loop to provide expert support to the on-site operator. This paper describes the facility and its capabilities as platform for fresh food production experiments in an extreme environment. It is an extended version of a paper presented at the AIDAA Congress 2019, in the Technical Session “Red Planet Exploration”.