Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC) will enjoy watching the first official food production system, "VEGGIE," launch to the International Space Station this Sunday morning on a NASA-sponsored, commercial cargo flight (the Space X CRS 3 cargo resupply mission). VEGGIE will be on board the SpaceX CRS 3, scheduled to take off Sunday, March 16th launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

VEGGIE, an expandable and deployable vegetable system, was developed by ORBITEC to grow salad crops to supplement prepackaged foods during long stays in space. The primary goal of VEGGIE is to provide flight crews with palatable, nutritious, and safe sources of fresh food with minimal volume and operational resources.

Significant, beneficial plant and life science experiments can also be conducted in the VEGGIE system. VEGGIE is designed as a very small module during flight stages and is later "unfolded" for growth operations. Additional science is also planned using VEGGIE to study various aspects of plant growth in the microgravity habitat.

"We are very proud of this development as a simple system that can handle complex fluid handling for plant growth," said Tom Crabb, ORBITEC president. "The hard work of our growing staff lends credence to fact that ORBITEC fulfills its customers' missions, and provides another small step toward reaching closure in the life support system for longer duration missions."

ORBITEC is looking to fill positions in mechanical, electrical, and systems engineering and management in addition to flight hardware and test technicians to meet the demands of existing and new contracts. Resumes are being accepted here.

Plants grown in space have the innate ability to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, to purify water waste streams into drinkable water, and to provide food for space travelers.

ORBITEC recognizes, and astronauts on the Space Station have affirmed, the age-old adage that gardening is good for the soul. In other words, gardening can be beneficial for relaxation and recreation, possibly acting as a key contribution to improved human performance in long-duration spaceflight.

As evidence, astronauts on the space station, who often stay for periods of six months, have been enjoying plant experiments, which provide them with much missed greenery and can occupy valuable free time with an enjoyable task.

VEGGIE was one of the many spinoffs of technology developed by ORBITEC from the Biomass Production System, or BPS, a plant-growth research unit that was installed on the Space Station to conduct tests on growing plants in microgravity. After the successful BPS flight, discussions began at ORBITEC about innovative methods for growing plants in space to improve plant habitability with extremely reliable yet simple systems.

ORBITEC observed astronaut Jim Voss on Expedition 2, the second group to live on the station, and astronaut Don Pettit during Expedition 6, the sixth tenancy of the station, attempting to grow onions and other varieties of plants in old food bags, having little success due to the lack of a proper growth medium and fertilizer. ORBITEC's goal for VEGGIE is a device that astronauts can take into orbit and use to grow a variety of plants for supplemental food preparation.