Space Flowers: Astronauts Grow Blooms on the ISS for New Year’s

Now they are all set to witness flowers blooming in space. For a initial time in history, a flowering stand will be grown on a space station, NASA pronounced in a statement.

On Monday morning, November 16, astronaut Kjell Lindgren activated what is known as the Veggie plant growth system and its rooting “pillows”.

Zinnia belongs to a sunflower clan in a daisy family.

“Growing a flowering crop is more challenging than growing a vegetative crop such as lettuce”, said Gioia Massa, NASA Kennedy Space Center payload scientist for Veggie, in a news release.

Growing Zinnias in orbit will help provide precursory information about other flowering plants that could be grown in space.

A similar incident in 2014 also required to spacewalk to affect repairs, said NASA spokesman Dan Huot, who emphasized that the six members of the crew are in no danger despite the degraded power system.

Learning more about how to grow flowering plants will be the precursor to knowing enough to grow fruiting plants, such as tomatoes, noted Trent Smith, program manager of Veggie at Kennedy, in the release.

Of course, growing plants in outer space is about more than astronauts eating lettuce and looking at pretty flowers.

In order to encourage the zinnias, Lindgren will switch on red, blue and green LED lights, turn on the water and nutrient system to the Veggie system, and keep an eye on plant growth.

Astronauts aboard the worldwide Space Station (ISS) have already harvested a crop of “Outredgeous” red romaine lettuce on the orbital laboratory.

Researchers also hope to gather good data regarding long-duration seed stow and germination, whether pollen could be an issue, and the impacts on crew morale. NASA plans to grow tomato plants in space in 2017.

The Orbital Technologies Corporation in Madison, Wisconsin developed the Veggie system and tested at Kennedy before flight.

The U.S. space agency believes that having fresh food available in space will likely boost astronomers’ moods.