Crew 188 Sol 2 Green Hab Report 30JAN2018
Julia DeMarines
30/01/2018
Environmental control: Heating
Ambient with door opening: Shade cloth on
Working hours in Green Hab: 09:10 – 09:40, 18:45 – 19:25
Outside temp at working hour: __ , ___
Inside temp at working hour: 25ºC, (unclear for second round)
Inside temp H: 35ºC,
Inside temp L: 14ºC,
Inside humidity: 90 (I may have spilled water on the sensor which may explain why it has become more illegible)
Inside humidity H: 90%
Inside humidity L: 16%
Hours of supplemental light: 05:00 – 11:59
Changes to the crops: Moved more tomato and bean plants to blue container to allow for more light for blocked plants and for easier watering access. Trimmed back several cucumber, tomato, and bean vines and stems. Harvested the following: dill, sage, and beans.
Daily water usage for crops: 8 gallons
Time(s) of watering plants: 18:45 – 19:25
Changes to research plants: After an email from Atila, I will be monitoring the quinoa for sprouting.
Narrative: This morning around, just after 9 am, I checked on the plants and they most of them seem to be doing excellent with a few cucumber plants that have yellow and wilting leaves. I moved a few more plants from the wooden platform to the blue bin and began trimming back some of the excessive growth to lessen the vegetation and give more energy to the fruits. There is still some more re-organizing I would like to do to give equal light to some of the plants that were shaded out. In the evening I came back to find that the plants seemed a bit more wilted than in the morning. I might implement a mid-day watering to see if that fixes the problem, or perhaps add a 9th gallon to watering. It’s specifically the tomato plants that appear the most wilted. I also trimmed several of the yellow leaves off and will continue to do so.
Future needs and questions: Going to look for gardening gloves tomorrow – those cucumber stems have a bite! Where would be an appropriate location to place or dispose of trimmed vegetation?
Summary of new hardware set up in GreenHab:
Today our Executive Officer set up a prototype piece of NASA plant growth hardware called “OASYS” which will be utilized to test a new watering system ideal for reduced and microgravity environments. The experiment will utilize the east corner of the GreenHab and will be photographed daily as the plants grow. She took photographs of the hardware inventory and set up and transmitted back to the scientist at Kennedy Space Center.
The Orbital Aquifer System for VEGGIE was invented by NASA sceinetists at the Kennedy Space Center for passively watering plants in space. The team will be growing salad bar variety lettuce and Italian basil seeds in the hardware. These two plant types are quick to grow, easy to germinate from seeds and can be transferred to pots at the end of our mission for the following crews to enjoy with their dinner.
VEGGIE is an EXPRESS rack facility for growing plants on the International Space Station. NASA Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center engineers designed and built a passive delivery system to water plants over time without the need for power or maintenance and minimal human interaction. The design employs capillary force to deliver water from a reservoir into the plant root zone. The new hardware is modeled after the VEGGIE Root Mat that is currently aboard ISS and solves several key issues that were seen during the first VEG-01 experiment.
Our Executive Officer will run this experiment with our Crew Engineer and Crew Astronomer/GreenHab Officer checking the germination daily and monitoring growth, recording light, temperature and humidity statistics and taking daily photographs for the scientist.