Lada:

Named for the ancient Russian goddess of spring, Lada is a vegetation chamber created to provide a "space garden" for astronauts during their long flights. Launched aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on 25 September 2002, Lada is now hosted on the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and will remain in continuous use through 2006. Since its launch, Lada has produced a harvest of fresh vegetables, providing cosmonauts with nutritional meals and therapeutic activity.

Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) collaborated with the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems to develop Lada. Because Lada enables scientists to conduct affordable and long-term research on plant development in space, NASA and other space agencies are considering using vegetable production units much like Lada as part of the ISS and Mars Transit flight support systems. SDL jointly owns the Lada hardware with the Russians, and experiments using the hardware will be flown as part of the Russian scientific program with USU investigators as partners.

Gardening in Space:
Microgravity and in-space plant growth

Because microgravity conditions in space produce complications in root control and water movement, Lada uses special root systems. For soil, Lada uses granulated, non-oxidized clay enriched with a long duration time-release fertilizer. Lada also uses wicks used to seal the top openings in the roots, to hold the seeds in place during germination and to provide an easy access path to the surface.

Safety and Health Precautions:

Samples of plant tissue from previous Lada crops are continually analyzed by flight surgeons to reduce safety risks. Such tests search for any dangerous microorganisms (such as bacteria and viruses) that initiate food-borne disease, develop in the closed ecosystem of the cabin, or spread through unsafe water distribution. Scientists also hope to alleviate plant exposure to ethylene, a colorless, flammable gas that reduces pollination and fruit development and is 5,000 times more toxic to plants than carbon monoxide is to humans.

Self-monitoring equipment and scheduled breaks from their rigorous schedules are now providing crew members with more personal time to relax on the ISS. Lada provides an ideal opportunity for therapeutic gardening and a respite from the pressures of cabin life. Crew members find the plant life refreshing and companionable, and they enjoy the recreational activity.

Benefits of Lada:

Conservation and Nutrition: Lada's original and long-term purpose is to provide the ISS crews with most of the food, fresh water, and oxygen they need during extended flights. Plant studies for Lada focus on crops with a rate of high production and low effort such as Mizuna, a lettuce-like plant native to Japan that can grow up to eight inches in three weeks. Other Lada plants include tomatoes, peas, radishes, peppers and rice.

A Cost- and Space-Efficient Greenhouse: As a wall-mounted system optimized to provide long-term plant growth, Lada takes up little space in the ISS. The small, low-cost growth chamber provides light and root zone control but relies on the cabin control systems for humidity, carbon dioxide and regulated temperature. For little more than the cost of ground studies, NASA can work to reduce risks involved in vegetation production units much like Lada.

Psychological Benefits: Self-monitoring equipment and scheduled breaks from their rigorous schedules are now providing crew members with more personal time to relax on the ISS. Lada provides an ideal opportunity for therapeutic gardening and a respite from the pressures of cabin life. Crew members find the plant life refreshing and companionable, and they enjoy the recreational activity.

Lada Components:
The Lada system includes the following:

• A control Module (center): 9.5" x 7" x 9.5" and approx. 14.75 lbs.
• Two independent vegetation modules: 9" x 21.5" x 6.5" and approx. 11.5 lbs.
• Two water reservoirs

With both growth chambers and lights on, the system uses approximately 200 Watts.

Gardening at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS):

Growing Planets in Enclosed Environment: The MDRS is an excellent place to perform plant growth experiments in enclosed environment using the Lada system. Coming here to MDRS and conducting research with LADA provides first hand experience of operating the equipment under similar conditions as on board the ISS. The same types of logistics problems are encountered, such as: space and storage, power usage, climate control, resource allocation (crew time), and reliability.

Space and Storage: Lada's sizes makes it very portable, the entire unit can be packed into two equipment cases. Once the unit is set up it occupies very little space in the lab portion of the Hab, allowing other crew members to conduct there experiments.

Power Usage: Electrical power on board the ISS is a commodity that needs to be used carefully; the same principle applies at the MDRS. A diesel powered generator nicked named the 'China Special' provides the Hab with electrical power. A major difficult to contend with are the power outages when the generator stops working from either routine maintenance, or generator failure. This creates a problem for the data logger that is housed in the control unit of Lada. The power interruptions cause the data logger program to reset it self. Requiring the crew to reload the program each time there is a power interruption. It's also caused problems in retrieving some of the data. This is the kind of challenge that a crew on Mars would have to deal with on a regular base. This is a very valuable lesson to glen from this study.

Climate Control: The temperature in the labortory in the MDRS Hab stays relatively cool 68 F to 75 F, unlike the GreenHab that has differential temperature change of 60 F during early morning, or late evening, and 100 F in the afternoon. It's quite challenging to grow plants in the GreenHab because of this temperature changes from morning to evening. From experience, the temperature is difficult to control in the GreenHab because of the intermittent power loss. If the temperature is too high it will kill the plants. This was not a problem for Lada because of its small size; it was kept in the lab where the temperature stays relatively the same even during a power failure.

Resource Allocation (crew time): Again, Lada proved its worth in freeing up the crew members time in performing other essential duties. An automated life support system will be very useful for feeding a Mars exploration crew. Occasional checkup on the system to make sure it was operating correctly is all that was required by this crew.

Reliability: A major lessoned learned during Crew 26 rotation is having a system that is reliable. Lada's problems with electrical power could have been eliminated by using a battery back up system. A battery back up was brought, but the electrical power to the Hab was shut off for 24 hours, much longer then the life of the battery.

Benefits: A surprising benefit during our rotation was using Lada as a 'plant incubator'. Some of the plants that were cultured where used in a terraforming experiment. The plants growing in Lada where planted in some soil samples that where collected at various locations around 'Mars' (Skyline Rim near Hanksville, UT). Future crew will need to keep track of this project and record there progress.