Vegetable Production System

The Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a NASA-developed plant growth unit for space. Its goals include supplying astronauts with a sustainable food source and offering therapeutic gardening for recreation and relaxation. Built with ORBITEC, Veggie became operational on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2014, and a second module was added in April 2018 via SpaceX CRS-14.

Overview

Veggie serves as a research platform for space food production, studying plant growth in microgravity and efficient cultivation for crew use. It is designed for low maintenance, low power consumption, and low launch mass, providing a minimally controlled environment with limited regulation of atmosphere and temperature. Its successor, the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), arrived at the ISS in 2017.

Lighting system

The Veggie module weighs under 8 kg (18 lb) and uses 90 watts. It has three components: a lighting system, a bellows enclosure, and a reservoir. The lighting system controls light amount and intensity using red, blue, and green LEDs, with default settings for each color’s intensity in micromoles per second per square meter. Opaque bellows block external light.

Bellows enclosure

The bellows enclosure, made of a fluorinated polymer, manages airflow and air pressure within the unit, connecting to the lighting system at the top and a baseplate at the bottom. Power and cooling come from ExPRESS Racks, while temperature and humidity are controlled by the surrounding environment. The reservoir holds and delivers water to plant pillows, which contain seeds, fertilizer, and substrate. Seeds are positioned in the sticky pillows so roots grow downward into the substrate and stems grow upward outside.

Experiments with Veggie include Veggie-3 (VEG-03 A, B, C, D) in 2016, which grew "Outredgeous" red romaine lettuce, Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage, Mizuna mustard, and Waldmann's Green lettuce. Veggie-4 (VEG-04 A & B) in 2019 grew Mizuna mustard. As of March 2023, Veggie-5 (VEG-05) successfully grew "Red Robin" dwarf tomatoes—though note that Veggie-5 was actually conducted using the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), not the Veggie module itself; the Veggie-specific experiment series only includes Veggie-1 through Veggie-4. Other plants grown include Zinnia hybrida ("Profusion" var.).

Results

In 2010, Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS) tested a Veggie prototype with lettuce during a 10-day field trial.