Astronauts to Grow Lettuce in Space with NASA Veggie Farm

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A prototype version of Veggie with red romaine lettuce plants growing inside of it.
A prototype version of Veggie with red romaine lettuce plants growing inside of it. (Image credit: NASA/Gioia Massa)

Astronauts longing for fresh lettuce in orbit will soon have the chance to grow it for themselves: NASA is sending a mini-farm into space.

When the private spaceflight company SpaceX launches its next Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station on Monday (April 14), the capsule will be carrying a small plant growth chamber built to let astronauts grow "Outredgeous" lettuce in orbit.

A 28-day-old Outredgeous red romaine lettuce leaf growing in a prototype spaceflight pillow. (Image credit: NASA/Gioia Massa)

The goal of the Veg-01 experiment, nicknamed "Veggie", is to see how well plants grow in orbit. If these early tests go well and the food proves safe, scientists hope to expand the menu. [Space Food Photos: What Astronauts Eat in Orbit]

"Veggie will provide a new resource for U.S. astronauts and researchers as we begin to develop the capabilities of growing fresh produce and other large plants on the space station," said Gioia Massa, NASA payload scientist for Veggie, in a statement. "Determining food safety is one of our primary goals for this validation test."

Space is at a premium on a spacecraft and also on the International Space Station, so the Veggie chamber is built to collapse for transportation and when it is in storage. When fully deployed, it's about a 1.5-feet (X meters) long, making it the biggest such plant chamber in space to date.

A version of the chamber has been tested on the ground, where lettuce and radishes were successfully grown at the Kennedy Space Center's space life sciences laboratory. Veggie was developed by Madison, Wis.-based Orbital Technologies Corp.

NASA's Veggie experimental space farm is slated to launch on SpaceX's Dragon capsule at 4:58 p.m. EDT (2058 GMT). Visit Space.com for complete coverage of the Dragon mission to the International Space Station.

Visit Space.com for complete coverage of SpaceX's Dragon launch to the International Space Station. You can also get blow-by-blow mission updates the Mission Status Center of Space.com partner Spaceflight Now, which will also feature a launch webcast. 

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Elizabeth Howell
Elizabeth Howell
Former Staff Writer, Spaceflight (July 2022-November 2024)

Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., was a staff writer in the spaceflight channel between 2022 and 2024 specializing in Canadian space news. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years from 2012 to 2024. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House, leading world coverage about a lost-and-found space tomato on the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, flying parabolic, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller?" (ECW Press, 2022) is co-written with astronaut Dave Williams.