Plants Shall Reach Mars In A Tiny Greenhouse Via The 2020 Mars Rover

Talking to reporters at the Humans 2 Mars Conference, Heather Smith of NASA's Ames Research Center said that researchers have proposed a plant-growth experiment on Mars with the help of the next Mars rover. The project titled Mars Plant Experiment (MPX) will consist of a clear CubeSat casing which will serve as the greenhouse. The sealed casing will house 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant and soil and air from Earth. The casing will be attached to the exterior of the new rover and once it reaches the Mars surface in the year 2021 it shall be watered for two weeks and researchers will monitor the growth, if there is any.


The team says that it will be the stepping stone to check the sustainability of a human base on the planet. The MPX will serve as an organism-level test of the Mars environment and will help researchers to get an idea of on how Earth life deals with the high radiation levels and low gravity of the red planet. The 2020 Mars Rover will have the same under pinning as that of the Curiosity rover and its main purpose will be to search for information regarding the planet’s history. It will collect rock and soil samples and shall return back to Earth with them. While NASA has provided an artist rendition of the rover’s look it is now busy deciding which instruments out of the 58 instrument proposals shall make it to the rover. We expect to know the answer by June.


Source: NASA May Put Tiny Greenhouse on Mars in 2021 | Space