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CI Asteroid Regolith as an In Situ Plant Growth Medium for Space Crop Production

Metadata Updated: August 30, 2025

Human expansion into the solar system is currently at the forefront of space research. For our astronauts to survive, they will need to be fed a healthy and nutritious diet on a consistent basis. Right now, our current method of feeding astronauts consists of resupplied prepackaged food from Earth, which is unsustainable for long-term missions. Using planetary resources via in situ resource utilization to grow crops is the next step toward sustainability in space. Asteroids are an abundant space resource and should not be overlooked when considering crewed missions. In particular, the primordial CI carbonaceous asteroids are of interest because the regolith is suggested to contain soluble elemental nutrients, such as phosphorous and potassium, that crops can use for growth and development. We present a study on the ability of CI carbonaceous asteroid regolith simulant to sustain plant growth of lettuce (Latuca sativa), radishes (Raphanus sativus), and peppers (Capsicum annuum). We tested growing the selected crops in increasing mixtures of simulant and peat moss. The results showed that each species reacted differently to each treatment and that the radishes were more affected by the treatments. Subsequent analysis showed that the simulant contains small amounts of plant-usable nutrients, despite its high pH, low cation exchange capacity, and classification as a silt-based soil. Our results indicate that the simulant is prone to compaction and crusting, leading to drought stress on the crops. Further investigations are needed to determine mitigation strategies to make CI asteroid regolith a more conducive soil. This data set derives results from the Image Analysis Photography assay with leaf area measurements. Additional data provided in the sample table includes plant height and biomass measurements as well as a thorough analysis of the substrate including pH, elemental analysis, and soil texture analysis.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 30, 2025
Publisher Open Science Data Repository
Maintainer
Identifier 10.26030/m04e-p031
Data Last Modified 2025-08-21
Category Biological and Physical Sciences
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 57e417c5-ae04-40ae-90bf-266daf173c47
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a949ad8db2262f3c09ab8d892b1ffe8fde936f770c8c012e662020ba217301c2
Source Schema Version 1.1

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