ExoLab is an experiment platform that brings together classrooms and the International Space Station in a collaborative investigation of the effects of microgravity on living things. ExoLab is designed with lesson sequence for 6th – 8th grade based on the NGSS. The International Space Station (ISS) is home to advanced microgravity research for academia and industry. Working with school districts across the United States along with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), Magnitude.io seeks to provide an extraordinary exobiology experience mapped to accepted local science standards while dramatically reducing the cost to access experiments in space.

The experiments are initiated on the ISS in accordance with resupply missions. This allows for multiple experiments per year, giving options on when to align the classroom experiment with the ISS experiment. Students look for relationships between the environmental conditions, including the effect of microgravity on the growth of living things in general.

Bacteria are critical in the support of nutrient uptake by plants, and ultimately, all life on Earth. If humans are going to explore other planets or spend extended time in interplanetary space, they are going to need a way of producing a sustainable food source.

In the first five ExoLab missions, we explored the effects of microgravity on the germination and seedling development of plants. Starting with Arabidopsis thaliana, and then most recently the microgreens amaranth, pak choi, purslane, and wasabi, we found the most difficult aspect of the environment onboard the International Space Station to be heat stress. However, we have established through these five missions that it is possible to grow food plants in microgravity. One must next consider how to sustain the food plants in space.

All plants require a significant amount of nitrogen to be able to synthesize amino acids. Since the Earth’s atmosphere is largely nitrogen, one might think that plants would have no problem acquiring the levels of nitrogen required. Unfortunately, for the plant, atmospheric nitrogen (N2) is not bioactive, and therefore unavailable for plant use. Enter the soil microbes that perform the role of nitrogen “fixation,” or converting atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia. Two key species are responsible for nitrogen fixation: Azotobacter and Rhizobia. Azotobacter is free-living in the soil, while Rhizobia work in symbiosis with leguminous plants.

In our upcoming sixth ExoLab mission, we will be sending Azotobacter and Rhizobia to the ISS! How will these soil microflorae be affected by the conditions of the space environment?

We hope you and your students will join us on our next mission to find if we can support plant life long-term in space. ExoLab Mission 6 is scheduled to launch aboard SpaceX CRS-18 in July.

Flight Schedule