Browsing by Author "Fritsche, Ralph"
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Item Design of a Plant Health Monitoring System for Enhancing Food Safety of Space Crop Production Systems(50th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 7/12/2021) Monje, Oscar; Nugent, Matthew; Finn, Joshua; Spencer, Lashelle; Kim, Moon; Qin, Jianwei; Orourke, Aubrie; Romeyn, Matthew; Fritsche, RalphThe deployment of fresh crop production systems on spacecraft will require that plant health and food safety is determined without crew intervention. Currently, detecting the occurrence of poor growth in spaceborne plant growth chambers can be accomplished via nondestructive measurements of plant growth rates obtained from photographic analysis of daily increments in leaf area. However, this approach detects changes that may have taken place days earlier before a visible change in leaf area is observed. A prototype hyperspectral and chlorophyll fluorescence imaging system was designed for early symptom detection of plant stress in crop production systems. This prototype imaging system composed of a hyperspectral camera, two LED light banks and a translational arm was designed and constructed. The translational arm moves the camera and the LED light banks over plants growing below. The lighting system uses white LEDs to generate a reflectance signal and UV-A LEDs to induce a chlorophyll fluorescence signal. Plant images obtained with theis prototype plant health monitoring system (PHM) were used to evaluate image processing functions: calculating reflectance images, removing non-plant background pixels, and calculating vegetation indices from hyperspectral reflectance images. Future work will characterize the chlorophyll fluorescence imaging system and identify suitable vegetation indices for detecting common plant stresses (e.g. drought, overwatering, nutrient deficiencies, etc.) encountered in space crop production systems.Item NASA Crew Health & Performance Capability Development for Exploration: 2022 to 2023 Overview(2023 International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2023-07-16) Abercromby, Andrew; Douglas, Grace; Kalogera, Kent; Marshall-Goebel, Karina; Somers, Jeffrey; Suresh, Rahul; Thompson, Moriah; Wood, Scott; Fritsche, Ralph; Hwang, Emma; Yang, Justin; Broyan, JamesRadiation, reduced gravity, distance from earth, isolation and confinement, and habitation within artificially created and controlled life support environments are hazards that present risk to human space explorers. These hazards necessitate development of new technologies to protect crew health and performance during future long-duration missions to the moon and Mars. NASA’s System Capability Leads coordinate with agency experts, programs, and exploration architecture teams to identify and prioritize technology investments in support of future missions. This paper describes progress over the past year in CHP technology development, ground testbed development, ground-based testing, parabolic flight testing, and on-orbit technology demonstrations. Technology maturation progress and future plans are described in the following capability areas: crew health countermeasures; spacesuit physiology and performance; food and nutrition; radiation protection; and exploration medical capabilities.Item New Frontiers in Food Production Beyond LEG(49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2019-07-07) Monje, Oscar; Dreschel, Tom; Nugent, Matthew; Hummerick, Mary; Spencer, Lashelle; Romeyn, Matthew; Massa, Gioia; Wheeler, Raymond; Fritsche, RalphNew technologies will be needed as mankind moves towards exploration of cislunar space, the Moon and Mars. Although many advances in our understanding of the effects of spaceflight on plant growth have been achieved in the last 40 years, spaceflight plant growth systems have been primarily designed to support space biology experiments where the mission ended after the completion of a series of experiments. Recently, the need for a sustainable and robust food system for future missions beyond LEO has identified gaps in current technologies for food production. The goal is to develop safe and sustainable food production systems with reduced resupply mass and crew time than current systems. New soilless water and nutrient delivery systems are needed to avoid constant resupply of bulky single-use porous media. Autonomous plant health and food safety monitoring systems are needed for to ensure that the food produced is suitable for supplementing crew diets with fresh and nutritious salad crops. New plant species and cultivars with improved contents of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals when grown elevated CO2 concentrations found in spacecraft. These improvements in food production technologies will enable the design of more robust and sustainable life support systems for manned exploration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit.