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Spinoff story
Space Station Garden Shines Light on Earth-Based Horticulture
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
The new Advanced Plant Habitat on the space station has features its predecessors don’t, including the ability to automate “light recipes”—variations in the color, intensity, and time intervals of lighting, which affect how plants grow. The German company OSRAM, whose U.S. headquarters is in Wilmington, Massachusetts, was developing a similar technology when its engineers were introduced to Kennedy Space Center scientists developing experiments for the Advanced Plant Habitat. Kennedy started using OSRAM’s Phytofy platform, essentially beta testing, validating, and providing feedback on it ahead of its commercialization.