ISSTechnology

Redwire to Develop First Commercial Greenhouse in Space

Redwire announced yesterday it will develop the first commercially owned and operated space greenhouse. The project, funded by an award from the ISS National Lab, will generate insights to support both crop science on Earth and future exploration missions. 

  • Redwire Greenhouse will take flight no earlier than spring 2023 and, if all goes to plan, will be the first commercially owned greenhouse on the ISS. 

“Growing full crops in space will be critical to future space exploration missions as plants provide food, oxygen and water reclamation,” Dave Reed, Redwire Florida Launch Site Operations Director and Greenhouse project manager, said in a press release. “Increasing the throughput of crop production research in space, through commercially developed capabilities, will be important to deliver critical insights for NASA’s Artemis missions and beyond.” 

Redwire is no stranger to the space plant game. 

  • The mission will make use of Redwire’s already flight-qualified plant growth tech, including Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System (PONDS) devices. These devices,  developed in partnership with Tupperware, are currently on the ISS. 
  • Redwire has also managed plant investigations in NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat since 2018.

Who’s buying: Redwire’s customer for the inaugural flight is expected to be Dewey Scientific, an agtech company focused on cannabis science. Its team plans to conduct a 60-day gene expression study to advance biomedical and biofuels research through growing industrial hemp in space.  

Looking forward: This is just the first step for Redwire’s greenhouse foray. The space infrastructure company will use this first mission to test out kinks in the facility’s operations, lighting, ventilation, and leaf litter containment functions. After the in-space demo, it hopes to provide a simple, scalable commercial product for civil and commercial customers, enabling them to make the leap from small-scale lab experiments to true production in space. 

Related Stories
CivilISSLEO

ESA Inks a Starlab Partnership

ESA is exploring its options for life after the ISS. 

MilitaryTechnology

Xage Pulls $17M USSF Contract for Cybersecurity

The Space Force is making strides toward protecting its critical assets in space with the award of a $17M contract to develop a zero-trust system that can keep space assets safe and sound. Xage Security Gov, the federal-focused arm of a startup building a zero-trust cybersecurity platform, announced this morning that it’s clinched the contract […]

Q&AStartupsTechnology

A Q+A with Sita Sonty, Space Tango CEO

Sita Sonty has only been CEO of Space Tango for a couple weeks, but she already has big plans for the company, including opening a new fundraising round and growing the startup’s global client base.  “Details are in the works. It is a private, friends and family round,” she told Payload. “A big part of […]

ISSTechnology

SpiderOak Demonstrates Cybersecurity on the ISS

SpiderOak demoed its OrbitSecure cybersecurity platform aboard the ISS last month, the company announced this morning, setting the stage for a future in which data can be securely shared in space by civil and defense customers.  The demo used an AWS Snowcone edge computing platform supplied by Axiom Space, and involved transmitting data back and […]