Facility for Higher Plant Culture on Orbit

The facility for higher plant culture on orbit is used to investigate the growth phenomenon of higher plant in microgravity environment. It is carried on Chinese Tiangong-2 spacelab, and its objective is to establish controlled ecological life support system on space station or space base. The facility selects arabidopsis (long-day plant) and rice (short-day plant) as experimental samples. It is composed of the module of higher plant cultivation, the module of life guarantee, the module of real-time online detection, and the retrieved unit. The facility has functions such as higher plant cultivation for long period, starting biological experiment on orbit, real-time online observation and fluorescence detection, cyclic utilization of water, nutrition supply, the control and detection of simulating long-day and short-day periodic of sunlight, the control and measure of ambient temperature, adjusting of CO₂ concentration, removal of harmful gas, and specimen retrieved by astronaut etc.