{"id":220866,"date":"2025-05-21T01:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/science-research\/science-enabling-technology\/unearthly-plumbing-required-for-plant-watering-in-space\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T01:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T15:01:13","slug":"unearthly-plumbing-required-for-plant-watering-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=220866","title":{"rendered":"Unearthly Plumbing Required for Plant Watering in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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4 min read<\/p>\n

Unearthly Plumbing Required for Plant Watering in Space<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NASA is demonstrating new microgravity fluids technologies to enable advanced \u201cno-moving-parts\u201d plant-watering methods aboard spacecraft.<\/p>\n

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Boeing Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore during operations of Plant Water Management-6 (PWM-6) aboard the International Space Station.<\/div>\n
Image: NASA<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Crop production in microgravity will be important to provide whole food nutrition, dietary variety, and psychological benefits to astronauts exploring deep space. Unfortunately, even the simplest terrestrial plant watering methods face significant challenges when applied aboard spacecraft due to rogue bubbles, ingested gases, ejected droplets, and myriad unstable liquid jets, rivulets, and interface configurations that arise in microgravity environments.<\/p>\n

In the weightlessness of space, bubbles do not rise, and droplets do not fall, resulting in a plethora of unearthly fluid flow challenges. To tackle such complex dynamics, NASA initiated a series of Plant Water Management (PWM) experiments to test capillary hydroponics aboard the International Space Station in 2021.<\/a> The series of experiments continue to this day, opening the door not only to supporting our astronauts in space with the possibility of fresh vegetables, but also to address a host of challenges in space, such as liquid fuel management, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), and even urine collection.<\/p>\n

The latest PWM hardware (PWM-5 and -6<\/a>) involves three test units, each consisting of a variable-speed pump, tubing harness, assorted valves and syringes, and either one serial or two parallel hydroponic channels. This latest setup enables a wider range of parameters to be tested\u2014e.g., gas and liquid flow rates, fill levels, inlet\/outlet configurations, new bubble separation methods, serial and parallel flows, and new plant root types, numbers, and orders.<\/p>\n

Most of the PWM equipment shipped to the space station consists of 3-D printed, flight-certified materials. The crew assembles the various system configurations on a workbench in the open cabin of the station and then executes the experiments, including routine communication with the PWM research team on the ground. All the quantitative data is collected via a single high-definition video camera.<\/p>\n

The PWM hardware and procedures are designed to incrementally test the system\u2019s capabilities for hydroponic and ebb and flow, and to repeatedly demonstrate priming, draining, serial\/parallel channel operation, passive bubble management, limits of operation, stability during perturbations, start-up, shut-down, and myriad clean plant-insertion, saturation, stable flow, and plant-removal steps.<\/p>\n

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PWM-5 Hydroponic channel flow on the International Space Station with: (1) packed synthetic plant root model in passive bubble separating hydroponic channel, (2) passive aerator, (3) passive fluid reservoirs for water and nutrient solution balance, (4) passive bubble separator, (5) passive water trap, and (6) passive gas\/bubble diverter. The flow is left to right across the channel and the aerated oxygenating bubbly flow is fully separated (no bubbles) by the bubble separator returning only liquid to the \u2018root zone.\u2019 The water trap, bubble diverter, root bundle and hydroponic channel dramatically increase the reliability of the plumbing by providing redundant passive bubble separating functions.<\/div>\n
Image courtesy of J. Moghbeli\/NASA<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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PWM-5 and -6 Root Models R1 \u2013 R4 from smallest to largest: perfectly wetting polymeric strands modelling Asian Mizuna.<\/div>\n
Image courtesy of IRPI LLC<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The recent results of the PWM-5 and -6 technology demonstrations aboard the space station have significantly advanced the technology used for passive plant watering in space. These quantitative demonstrations established hydroponic and ebb and flow watering processes as functions of serial and parallel channel fill levels, various types of engineered plant root models, and pump flow rates\u2014including single-phase liquid flows and gas-liquid two-phase flows.<\/p>\n

Critical PWM plumbing elements perform the role of passive gas-liquid separation (i.e., the elimination of bubbles from liquid and vice versa), which routinely occurs on Earth due to gravitational effects. The PWM-5 and -6 hardware in effect replaces the passive role of gravity with the passive roles of surface tension, wetting, and system geometry. In doing so, highly reliable \u201cno-moving-parts\u201d plumbing devices act to restore the illusive sense of up and down in space. For example,<\/p>\n