First U.S. Soil Sample to Soar to Space to Help Farmers
For the first time in history, U.S. soil will leave Earth and travel to space to be studied. The commercial resupply mission to deliver food, supplies, equipment, and soil to the International Space Station will lift off on Sept. 29 at 10:27 p.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
This is the first time that natural, unmodified Earth soil will be brought up into space. On the space station, researchers have used hydroponic planting systems, seeds placed in engineered growth media, and highly modified mineral soil, but this experiment will be different.
According to Cornell University, where the organic soil was selected from one of their farm plots, “Soil aggregates consist of particles that bind to one another for carbon sequestration, nutrient retention and soil aeration. Aggregation is considered a soil-health indicator that depends on fungal and microbial adhesives to bind mineral and organic matter.”
Since natural and biochar-containing soils have never been studied in space, scientists don’t know how they react without gravity. “We don’t know the role that gravity plays in driving soil biogeochemical processes,” Morgan Irons, a doctoral student in soil and crop sciences said. “We want to fundamentally understand the impact of gravity on fungal and microbial systems, within the context of soil aggregate stability.”