Science Verification Test Harvest

Jess Bunchek, an associate scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, harvests shungiku – an Asian green comparable to an edible chrysanthemum – inside the Veggie growth chamber in the Space Station Processing Facility on Sept. 30, 2019, for a science verification test (SVT). The SVT included the harvest of two other plant cultivars – amara mustard and ‘outredgeous’ red romaine lettuce – and will study their potential to grow in space. All three lettuce plants were grown from seed film, making this the first SVT with this new plant growth material. Earlier this year, the amara mustard and shungiku plants were grown for the first time using seed bags – referred to as pillows – during the Sustained Veggie project, a study funded by the Human Research Program.