Introduction/Background
By signing the Artemis Accords, spacefaring nations from around the globe have expressed their willingness to return astronauts to the Moon by the end of this decade. Unlike past lunar programs, Artemis aims to establish a long-term human presence on the surface of Earth’s natural satellite. A crewed outpost like the Artemis Base Camp requires a reliable supply of food and other consumables like oxygen. To address this need in a sustainable way, frequent resupply from Earth is not an option. Instead, a closed-loop bio-regenerative life-support system (BLSS) will be needed to produce fresh food and oxygen on-site, while eliminating carbon dioxide and other unwanted waste products. Thus, BLSS technologies have to be developed and field-tested in a space-analogue environment.

Method/Experiment
To this end, DLR has founded the Planetary Infrastructures research group. The group has worked on BLSS for more than 10 years and has developed, built and operated a prototype-level greenhouse for space called EDEN (Evolution & Design of Environmentally-closed Nutrition-Sources) ISS at the German Neumayer-Station III in Antarctica. The purpose of this facility was to enable multidisciplinary research on topics related to plant cultivation for future human space exploration missions. Research on plant health monitoring, microbiology, food quality and safety, and human factors was conducted, while simultaneously validating the system.

Result
After 5 years in Antarctica and more than 1 ton of biomass produced, the greenhouse was shipped back to Germany, bringing the project to a successful end in 2023. The follow-on project, EDEN LUNA, is currently under development. Its goal is to refurbish and upgrade the existing Controlled Environmental Agriculture (CEA) subsystems, while also introducing new technologies like a robotic arm, nutrient recovery from urine, and AI-based risk mitigation. Additionally, the group is working on a realistic version of a Lunar Agriculture Module Ground Test Demonstrator (LAM-GTD) together with the Canadian Space Agency and other international partners. Designed for the lunar environment and dimensioned to be compatible with current launch vehicles and space standards, the LAM-GTD symbolizes the last step of analogue testing, paving the way for actual space missions to Moon and Mars.

Conclusion
This paper summarizes lessons learned from EDEN ISS, while giving a status report on the development of the EDEN LUNA project. Moreover, a system overview for the LAM-GTD will be given, showcasing the most significant advances in BLSS technology at DLR.

Introduction/Background:
Roots play roles in a host of plant functions that are critical to cotton yields, stress resilience and its impact on the environment, through their activity in processes such as water uptake, nutrient usage, and soil carbon sequestration. Previously, Zhang et al., (2011) created cotton plants that over-express the vacuolar proton pumping pyrophosphatase (AVP1-OX). These plants show increased salt and drought resistance with more than a 20% increased fiber yield under stressful conditions that normally severely limit cotton productivity. These plants also develop a larger root system that can explore a wider and deeper volume of soil for water and nutrients. Such exploration patterns are inextricably linked to gravity, which directs the growth of the main and lateral roots via modulation of e.g., auxin signalling.

Method/Experiment:
The ISS National Laboratory provided us with a unique opportunity to ask: (1) what are the drivers for cotton root system development and function in the absence of the confounding influence of gravity, and (2) does AVP1 overexpression lead to resistance to the stresses of the spaceflight environment.

Result:
Analysis of root system architecture and growth kinetics indicate that the AVP1-OX lines grew larger roots when compared to the wild type in flight and to all of the ground controls, including the AVP1-OX lines themselves. Biochemical analyses of these plants also suggest they experienced reduced oxidative stress and maintained photosynthetic pigment levels.

Current conclusions and future work:
AVP-OX can be used as a tool to engineer larger more stress-resistant plants for future astro-agroecosystems. RNAseq analysis of these plants is now being used to provide insight into possible cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating these physiological responses.

Supported by CASIS UA-2018-276.