ISS astronauts harvest its fifth crop 'Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage' on space station!

Astronauts, who are currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), are harvesting their fifth on-orbit crop of first crop of Chinese cabbage on space station.

Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage leaves harvested aboard the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA

New Delhi: Astronauts, who are currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), are harvesting their fifth on-orbit crop of Chinese cabbage on the space station.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has harvested the leafy green vegetable on February 17, 2017.

'At first, one of the six seeds of the Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage variety seemed to have been planted higher than the rest, keeping it from getting wet enough in the beginning. But the on-orbit gardener would not be deterred', NASA said in a statement on Friday.

Nicole Dufour, NASA's Veggie project manager said,“Peggy is doing an amazing job. She wouldn’t give up and she was able to get the seed in pillow D to germinate.”

According to NASA, the space station crew members will get to eat some of the Chinese cabbage and the rest is being saved for scientific study back at Kennedy Space Center. This is the fifth crop grown aboard the station, and the first Chinese cabbage. The crop was chosen after evaluating several leafy vegetables on a number of criteria, such as how well they grow and their nutritional value. The top four candidates were sent to Johnson Space Center’s Space Food Systems team, where they brought in volunteer tasters to sample the choices. The Tokyo Bekana turned out to be the most highly rated in all the taste categories.

Later this year, the Advanced Plant Habitat, NASA’s largest plant growth chamber, will make its way to the station, increasing the amount of scientific knowledge needed to dig deeper into long-duration food production for missions farther and farther from home, as reported.