LED plant lighting planting has become a major highlight of the Shenzhou spacecraft mission

On the early morning of October 19th, the Shenzhou-11 manned spacecraft successfully docked with the Tiangong-2 spacecraft. At present, under the precise control of the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center, the combination of Tiangong-2 and Shenzhou-11 is adjusting its attitude from the original inverted state to forward flight, which is also the standard flight state of the combination.
Astronauts are not idle in the Tiangong-2 laboratory. They need to exercise, raise silkworms, and watch TV. In addition, they also did not forget to utilize the Chinese talent for vegetable cultivation, opening vegetable gardens in the Milky Way, planting lettuce seeds, and conducting plant cultivation experiments.
It is reported that the reason for bringing lettuce into space is because the growth cycle of lettuce happens to be 30 days, which coincides with the astronaut's stay in the Heavenly Palace. In addition, lettuce has strong environmental adaptability and is also loved by people, so it was fortunate to be selected.
 
However, the plants planted this time will not be consumed, but will be used as experimental samples to collect relevant data.
 
However, this is not the first time that plants have entered space, nor is it the first time that China has taken plants into space; The history of plant spaceflight has gone through several decades, almost like the development history of human aerospace. The most recent one was in 2015, when astronauts on the International Space Station planted lettuce in space and actually ate it!
 
Currently, only China, the United States, and Russia have successfully conducted research on "aerial breeding" carried out by manned spacecraft in the world.
 
In recent years, China's research on space vegetable cultivation has become increasingly in-depth, and it is expected that this experiment on space cultivation of lettuce will be carried out.