Simulated Deep Space Exposure on Seeds Utilizing the MISSE Flight Facility

The MISSE-Seed project was designed to investigate the effects of space exposure on seed quality and storage. The project tested the Multipurpose Materials International Space Station Experiment—Flight Facility (MISSE-FF) hardware as a platform for exposing biological samples to the space environment outside the International Space Station (ISS).

Furthermore, it evaluated the capability of a newly designed passive sample containment canister as a suitable exposure unit for biological samples for preserving their vigor while exposing to the space environment to study multi-stressor effects.

The experiment was launched to the ISS on Northrup Grumman (NG)-15. The exposure lasted eight months outside the ISS in the MISSE-FF at the Zenith position. The specimens consisted of eleven seed varieties.

Temperature dataloggers and thermoluminescent dosimeters were included in each container to record environmental data. We presented here the hardware and experimental design, environmental profiles, and seed survival from post-flight germination tests.

Containers carrying set of seeds for a Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) are shown Feb. 11, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The containers will fly aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft as part of NG-15, a NASA commercial resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory targeted for Feb. 20, 2021. They will be placed in the MISSE testing facility, located near the space station’s solar arrays, where they will be exposed to the extreme environment of space for six months before returning to Earth for further study. — NASA Larger image

Simulated deep space exposure on seeds utilizing the MISSE flight facility, NPJ Microgravity via PubMed (open access)

Astrobiology