Image: Chili flowers bloom in International Space Station
by Monika Luabeya
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Chili pepper plants growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat aboard the International Space Station bore fruit in the late summer and fall of 2021. Overcoming the challenges of growing fruit in microgravity is important to NASA for long-duration missions during which crew members will need good sources of Vitamin C to supplement their diets. Credit: NASA/Megan McArthur
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Chili pepper plants growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat aboard the International Space Station bore fruit in the late summer and fall of 2021. Overcoming the challenges of growing fruit in microgravity is important to NASA for long-duration missions during which crew members will need good sources of Vitamin C to supplement their diets. Credit: NASA/Megan McArthur
In July 2021, NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station started growing chili peppers in the Advanced Plant Habitat, as part of the Plant Habitat-04 (PH-04) experiment.
The astronauts and a team of researchers at Kennedy worked together to monitor the peppers' growth before harvesting them. In this image from Sept. 30, 2021, chili flowers and buds can be seen.
PH-04 was one of the longest and most challenging plant experiments attempted aboard the orbital lab. The resulted in a bumper crop: The 26 chili peppers grown broke the record for feeding the most astronauts from a crop grown in space.