UK indoor farming technology company Vertical Future (VF) has been selected by the UK Space Agency to develop crop production systems for installation in spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit.
The company has been awarded a grant of £1.5 million to deliver the second phase of the Autonomous Agriculture for Space Exploration project. This will see the adaption of VF controlled-environment-agriculture (CEA) systems to prototype Low Earth Orbit (“LEO”) growing systems for use in the first commercial space station, which is currently being constructed by Axiom Space, and is due to be deployed in orbit in 2026.
VF’s proposal was selected by the UK Space Agency due to its technological expertise and leadership in plant science. The technologies proven in this work will look beyond the initial LEO plans and expand into the 2030s as a key enabler for Mars missions. Following this, the goal is to implement the solutions onto Lunar Gateway, the Lunar surface, and, eventually, the Martian surface.
Commenting on the development, Dr Jen Bromley, Chief Scientific Officer and Autonomous Agriculture Project Lead at VF, said, “The further we go into space, the more we will need to produce while we’re there, be it food, biomaterials, or medicines. Plants are able to be the biofactories to cover all of these needs. The ability to reliably grow off-Earth is not yet realised as the technologies to achieve this haven’t yet been implemented away from Earth at the scale required to sustain life. The autonomous agriculture project puts VF and the UK at the front and centre, leading and defining a new category for the commercial space sector: Agri-Space. The skills and sector-specific knowledge brought by our incredible partners are crucial to delivering the project, including sensor development critical to delivering an autonomous growing environment and enabling fine-tuning of parameters that cannot be tested outside of a micro-gravity environment.”
Professor Anu Ojha, Director of Championing Space at the UK Space Agency, added, “Our International Bilateral Fund bolsters international collaboration that harnesses the UK’s national expertise, supports new space capabilities, and catalyses investment. Supporting innovative projects like the development of a robotic ‘space farm’ facility to grow plants in space is a great opportunity to showcase the UK as a spacefaring nation, whilst enhancing the wider UK space sector, creating jobs and generating further investment.”