Veg-03 J/K/L Prelaunch Prepartions for NG-13

Jess Bunchek, a pseudonaut and associate scientist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, prepares the materials needed for a germination test of red romaine lettuce seeds inside the Space Station Processing Facility on Jan. 15, 2020. The test will verify that the seeds can successfully grow from seed film – a new seed handling material – here on Earth before it’s sent to the International Space Station for testing in a microgravity environment as part of the VEG-03 series of experiments. The seed film experiment involves crew aboard the orbiting laboratory planting the seeds into plant pillows – a common method used to grow plants in space – themselves for the first time ever. The water-soluble, dissolving film addresses the challenge of handling seeds in a microgravity environment and also can be used to deliver fertilizers and other beneficial substances that help plants grow. The experiment will launch aboard a Northrop Grumman Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft on the company’s 13th resupply services mission to the space station. Liftoff is scheduled for Feb. 9, 2020, at 5:39 p.m. EST from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Date

2020-01-15

Photographer / author

NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Collection

KSC

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

photograph

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