Report by Krisha Bansal
NASA, as part of the Plant Habitat-04 experiment, started growing chilli pepper seeds on July 12, 2021 in the International Space Station (ISS). The saplings were under constant monitoring by the astronauts for four months.
The chilli peppers were harvested on October 30, 2021. The astronauts aboard the station tasted the first harvest of both the red and green pepper chillies by making tacos. The Plant Habitat-04 was the most complex experiment which involved growth from seeds to maturity. Chilli peppers are self-pollinating plants, but their gestation period is long. Plant growth in the ISS helps to reduce packaged foods to the space as many of the key nutrients like Vitamin C and Vitamin K present in the food are lost over a period of time due to storage.
