Soilless cultivation of soybean for Bioregenerative Life‐Support Systems: a literature review and the experience of the MELiSSA Project – Food characterisation Phase I

Abstract

Higher plants play a key role in Bioregenerative Life-Support Systems (BLSS) for long-term missions in space, by regenerating air through photosynthetic CO2 absorption and O2 emission, recovering water through transpiration and recycling waste products through mineral nutrition. In addition, plants could provide fresh food to integrate into the crew diet and help to preserve astronauts' wellbeing. The ESA programme Micro-Ecological Life-Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) aims to conceive an artificial bioregenerative ecosystem for resources regeneration, based on both microorganisms and higher plants. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] is one of the four candidate species studied for soilless (hydroponic) cultivation in MELiSSA, because of the high nutritional value of the seeds. Within the MELiSSA programme - Food characterisation Phase I, the aim of the research carried out on soybean at the University of Naples was to select the most suitable European cultivars for cultivation in BLSS. In this context, a concise review on the state-of-the-art of soybean cultivation in space-oriented experiments and a summary of research activity for the preliminary theoretical selection and subsequent agronomical evaluation of four cultivars will be presented in this paper.

Leaf Anatomy and Photochemical Behaviour ofSolanum lycopersicumL. Plants from Seeds Irradiated with Low-LET Ionising Radiation

“…Thus, knowing how ionising radiation affects morphogenesis, and even more leaf development, is interesting to evaluate possible impairment in photosynthesis which would constrain the maximisation of resource efficiency in the BLSSs. Indeed, the optimisation of resource use in the BLSSs is considered a challenge in Space exploration [6, 22–24]. …”

Agriculture for Space: People and Places Paving the Way

“…Photo courtesy of Yasuhiro Tako, CEEF. MELiSSA studies also tested remote sensing to monitor crop stress Lenk et al, 2007), crops such as beet and durum wheat, comparisons of soybean cultivars in controlled environments De Micco et al, 2012;Paradiso et al, 2012), tests of hydroponic cultivation techniques (Paradiso et al, 2014), and studies on recycling of plant wastes in collaboration with the Institute of Biophysics in Krasnoyarsk, Russia (Tikhomirov et al, 2003;Gros et al, 2004). As with many other space agencies, ESA also developed strategies to transition ground based testing of agriculture into actual spaceflight settings, such as the International Space Station (Wolff et al, 2014), and is currently planning upgrades to their European Modular Cultivation System (EMSC) to support biogenerative testing on the ISS (A-I.…”

BioRock: new experiments and hardware to investigate microbe–mineral interactions in space

“…The previous observation that biofilms can form completely novel structures under space conditions, such as the colony and canopy structures observed in Kim et al (2013a), which arise as a probable result of the absence of flow and gravity during space flight, shows that more experiments to study biofilm formation in space are needed. Investigating biofilm formation and growth has uses in understanding how microbes might grow within life support systems, such as the MELiSSA system, which is under development by the European Space Agency (ESA) (Godia et al 2002;Hendrickx & Mergeay 2007;Lasseur et al 2010;Paradiso et al 2014).…”