A 3u CubeSat Platform for Plant Growth Experiments

TARGET GROUP: CUBESAT ONBOARD CULTIVATION

OBJECTIVES

·        To study the interactions of soil microbes and plants to understand what the optimal concentration of beneficial microbes is when in space conditions, that maximizes nutrient uptake in plant roots and increases overall plant fitness.

·        To investigate the impact of sealed plant growth chambers trying to perform their duty in a space environment (microgravity and radiation effects).

SUMMARY

The CubeSat is one type of mini-satellite that plays an important role in testing a wide variety of scientific experiments that orbit around the Earth. Originally designed to test communication electronics in space at an academic level, it has fully expanded to be a solution for several academic and commercial groups to take advantage of when they want to conduct experiments in space. Today, CubeSats provide a common method for a small satellite to be launched into space with relatively little cost and possibly at higher quantities. Researching physical, biological, and electrical unknowns in space can expand knowledge in unexplored fields and applications.

Plant health can be monitored by various sensor readings; temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide, soil temperature, moisture and pH. The monitored values can correlate to rates of photosynthesis, pathogen multiplication, and transpiration, which are all indicators of how a plant and it’s supporting microbiome are doing. For instance, the pH values might vary between the levels of 8 to 12 based upon the plants preferred bacteria within a specific soil constitution and change as the plant grows while consuming nutrients provided by the microbiome. Different plant types prefer growing in different climates and the temperature plus relative humidity readings can monitor that the environment stays unchanged. The carbon dioxide readings should indicate that the plant is slowly absorbing the molecule resource from the air as it grows and at what rate. It could be necessary to add an oxygen sensor to monitor the O2 levels as the plants grow and emit the molecule as a by-product. Plants can be photographed in order to correlate Camera images looking at the intensity of various light wavelengths reflecting off of the leaves as the plant grows can provide information about the plant health across its different regions like the stem, leaves, and flowers. This characterization can be done for white light (visible light; 400 nm to 750 nm) and near infrared light (~750 nm to 2.5 um) each representing a different correlation to plant health.

REFERENCE  https://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11444&context=theses