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Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The Horizon2020 EDEN ISS project aims at development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for near term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) and, in a longer term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium, as part of the performed activities, has designed and built a plant cultivation system having form, fit and function of a European Drawer Rack 2 (EDR II) payload, with a modularity that would allow its incremental installation in the ISS homonymous rack, occupying from one-quarter rack to the full system. The developed system, named RUCOLA (Rack-like Unit for Consistent on-orbit Leafy crops Availability) was completed and tested in a laboratory environment in early 2017. The system was then operated in the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III, in a container-sized test facility to provide realistic mass flow relationships and interaction with a crewed environment. This paper describes the key results of the RUCOLA plant growth facility tests in Antarctica as a space-analogue environment.

This document provides the system software interface requirements of the EDEN ISS project. It includes the definition of all EDEN ISS external and internal software interface requirements. This includes a definition of telemetry from EDEN ISS sensors and telecommands used for controlling specific EDEN ISS equipment, EDEN ISS synoptic displays. &nbsp

This document provides the system requirements of the EDEN ISS project.

Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The Horizon2020 EDEN ISS project aims at development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for near term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) and from a long-term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium, as part of the performed activities, has designed and built a plant cultivation system to have form, fit and function of an European Drawer Rack 2 (EDR II) payload, with a modularity that would allow its incremental installation in the ISS homonymous rack, occupying from one-quarter rack to the full system. The construction phase is completed, and the developed system is being tested in a laboratory environment, planned for further validation at the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III, in a container-sized test facility to provide realistic mass flow relationships and interaction with a crewed environment. This paper describes the system as built and the key results of the first ISPR plant growth facility laboratory tests.

Designing the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) for exploration missions to the interplanetary space is a complex task beginning from the definition of the needs (e.g. diet, safety, radiation level,..) up to the selection of technology possibilities. In this context a major issue is the influence of crew number and mission duration to the ECLSS design. These are the main reasons why during mission studies the design of the ECLSS system mostly starts from scratch. Uncertainties about requirements, functions and technologies most suitable for the mission lead to a high number of iterations before a baseline design can be achieved. The aim of the SCALISS (Scaling of Life Support Systems) study was to understand and investigate in ECLSS functionality, technologies and scalabilities in order to produce a robust initial design starting point for future Phase-A studies with an automated tool. The developed Java-based ECLSS sizing tool is described in this paper together with the validation case study results. The possible evolutions and interactions with the ALiSSE tool are also described.

Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The Horizon2020 EDEN ISS project aims at development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for near term deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) and from a long-term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium, as part of the performed activities, has designed a plant cultivation system to have form, fit and function of an European Drawer Rack 2 (EDR II) payload, with a modularity that would allow its incremental installation in the ISS homonimous rack, occupying from one-quarter rack to the full system. The construction phase is started, and the developed system will be tested in a laboratory environment as well as at the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III, in a container-sized test facility to provide realistic mass flow relationships and interaction with a crewed environment. This paper describes the goals and system general design status of EDEN ISS ISPR plant growth facility.

This document provides a summary of the results of the two week EDEN ISS concurrent engineering design study conducted from Sep 7-18, 2015. The primary goal of the study was to produce a preliminary design of the EDEN ISS Mobile Test Facility. This preliminary design includes details from all Mobile Test Facility subsystems as well as initial details on a number of scientific and operational themes relevant to the EDEN ISS project. It is important to note, that the design of the Mobile Test Facility will continue to evolve, especially at the subsystem level, but that this document represents a snapshot of the design at the system level, and its status at the completion of the concurrent engineering design study in conjunction with its associated period of post-processing. The design study also generated a number of important supplementary reference documents including subsystem block diagrams and detailed ‘subsystem calculators’ which detail all subsystem components, quantities, estimated mass, volume and power in addition to a first detailed estimate of project spares and consumables. Although extracts of this information are included directly in the report, the current drafts of these documents should be referenced as separate files. The EDEN ISS concurrent engineering design study has matured the design of the Mobile Test Facility and its Future Exploration Greenhouse, Service Section (including the ISPR full rack plant growth system demonstrator) and cold porch. The study has proven the feasibility of the EDEN ISS project and demonstrated that the facility will serve as a valuable resource to the Neumayer III Antarctic Station and as a test-bed for testing plant growth technologies and operational techniques for use within future space-based missions. &nbsp

Plant cultivation in large-scale closed environments is challenging and several key technologies necessary for space-based plant production are not yet space-qualified or remain in early stages of development. The EDEN ISS project foresees development and demonstration of higher plant cultivation technologies, suitable for future deployment on the International Space Station and from a long-term perspective, within Moon and Mars habitats. The EDEN ISS consortium will design and test essential plant cultivation technologies using an International Standard Payload Rack form factor cultivation system for potential testing on-board the International Space Station. Furthermore, a Future Exploration Greenhouse will be designed with respect to future planetary bio-regenerative life support system deployments. The technologies will be tested in a laboratory environment as well as at the highly-isolated German Antarctic Neumayer Station III. A small and mobile container-sized test facility will be built in order to provide realistic mass flow relationships. In addition to technology development and validation, food safety and plant handling procedures will be developed. This paper describes the goals and objectives of EDEN ISS and the different project phases and milestones. Furthermore, the project consortium will be introduced and the role of each partner within the project is explained.

The EDEN ISS project is aimed at testing key technologies in view of space operations. The Mobile Test Facility represents a platform to verify the possibility to manage plant growth and safe food production in extreme conditions. But the race to space is done of small steps having the objective to reach intermediates goals, like for example the understanding on how the plants can be grown and managed in a closed ambient and with conditions that are different from those experience on hearth (for example under low gravity conditions, with artificial lighting conditions, etc). That includes the verification and the validation of the technical solutions that have to be designed to work in these conditions. For example the distribution of water and nutrients to the plants is a critical items in the absence of gravity, because the water, the air and the nutrient solutions distribute in different way. Several experiments are therefore required to increase the knowledge of the plant and system behaviour in space and to solve all the technical uncertainties in order to be ready for a complex mission that foresees the production of food on an extra-terrestrial outpost. For that reason, in the EDEN ISS project, a small laboratory has been implemented as first step on the way that to design and realize a scientific payload for plant experiments on board of the ISS. This laboratory, called RUCOLA (Rack-like Unit for Consistent on-Orbit Leafy crops Availability), has been designed looking at a future integration in the new version of the European Drawer Rack (EDR MKII) on board of the Columbus, the European Module of the International Space Station. The present document has the scope to follow-up the lessons learnt from the laboratory and the Antarctica test campaigns by outlining the following aspects:  Identification of the preliminary architecture of a plant growth rack-size experiment on the ISS – the RUCOLA system (Chapter 1)  Identification of the RUCOLA flight system preliminary physical configuration (Chapter 2)  Preliminary identification of the ISS test objectives and derivation of the flight operations, , including a preliminary list of the activities to be performed by ISS astronauts and ground operators (Chapter 3)  Identification of the RUCOLA products to be used for on board operations and the related development processes (Chapter 4)  Identification of a possible setup of a control centre and its connection to the ISS ground network, including the tools required for the RUCOLA remote operations (Chapter 5)  Identification of a set of relevant aspects related to growing plants on-board ISS (Chapter 7) The design stage is not mature enough to already develop detailed flight operational procedures or to develop tools for RUCOLA remote operations (as matter of fact the operations preparations, including the setup of the ground segment, starts from the phase C/D of a project, and we are pretty far from this phase). For this reason this document focuses on the analysis of the operations scenario, with the description of the on board and remote activities, in order to correctly define the operations requirements in view of a future development of the RUCOLA Flight Unit.

The EDEN ISS project is aimed at testing key technologies in view of space operations. The Mobile Test Facility represents a platform to verify the possibility to manage plant growth and safe food production in extreme conditions. But the race to space is done of small steps having the objective to reach intermediates goals, like for example the understanding on how the plants can be grown and managed in a closed ambient and with conditions that are different from those experience on hearth (for example under low gravity conditions, with artificial lighting conditions, etc). That includes the verification and the validation of the technical solutions that have to be designed to work in these conditions. For example the distribution of water and nutrients to the plants is a critical items in the absence of gravity, because the water, the air and the nutrient solutions distribute in different way. Several experiments are therefore required to increase the knowledge of the plant and system behaviour in space and to solve all the technical uncertainties in order to be ready for a complex mission that foresees the production of food on an extra-terrestrial outpost. For that reason, in the EDEN ISS project, a small laboratory has been implemented as first step on the way that to design and realize a scientific payload for plant experiments on board of the ISS. This laboratory, called RUCOLA (Rack-like Unit for Consistent on-Orbit Leafy crops Availability), has been designed looking at a future integration in the new version of the European Drawer Rack (EDR MKII) on board of the Columbus, the European Module of the International Space Station. The present document has the scope to follow-up the lessons learnt from the laboratory and the Antarctica test campaigns by outlining the following aspects:  Identification of the preliminary architecture of a plant growth rack-size experiment on the ISS – the RUCOLA system (Chapter 1)  Identification of the RUCOLA flight system preliminary physical configuration (Chapter 2)  Preliminary identification of the ISS test objectives and derivation of the flight operations, , including a preliminary list of the activities to be performed by ISS astronauts and ground operators (Chapter 3)  Identification of the RUCOLA products to be used for on board operations and the related development processes (Chapter 4)  Identification of a possible setup of a control centre and its connection to the ISS ground network, including the tools required for the RUCOLA remote operations (Chapter 5)  Identification of a set of relevant aspects related to growing plants on-board ISS (Chapter 7) The design stage is not mature enough to already develop detailed flight operational procedures or to develop tools for RUCOLA remote operations (as matter of fact the operations preparations, including the setup of the ground segment, starts from the phase C/D of a project, and we are pretty far from this phase). For this reason this document focuses on the analysis of the operations scenario, with the description of the on board and remote activities, in order to correctly define the operations requirements in view of a future development of the RUCOLA Flight Unit.