On April 2, 2018, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will make its 14th resupply to the International Space Station (ISS). Riding on a Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon will take supplies, equipment and scientific research to the crew members aboard the ISS. One of the areas of scientific research for this mission is furthering research on growing vegetables in space.
Since 2015, astronauts have grown crops in space using the Vegetable Production System (Veggie), a plant growth unit deployed on board that grows vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, etc) to provide a continuous source of fresh food to the crew.
The Veggie also serves a scientific purpose, determining how plants sense, develop and respond to gravity, harvested, analyzed and eaten. NASA scientists also say that growing plants in space can also help them understand how to improve plant production on Earth as well.
With the Veggie system, a seed is inserted into a round soft surface known as a plant pillow inside a circular container. Astronauts then inject the plant pillow with a syringe filled with water. Prior Veggie experiments showed that some plants did better than others based on the regularity of the water and oxygen they received.
But on this mission, the Veggie experiment uses a new method to deliver nutrients to plants through the Passive Orbital