The TASTIE future of ASTROagriculture

Trichoderma Associated Space Tomato Inoculation Experiment: TASTIE 

Presenting the Logo and opnom "TASTIE" for our up coming Trichoderma Associated Space Tomato Inoculation Experiment. 

Thank you Sarah Friedrich for another awesome graphic! 

During this mission we will investigate the growth of Red Robin Tomato's on the international space station grown in the VEGGIE hardware. During the experiment one group of samples will be cultivated in petri dishes along with a potentially beneficial fungi from the Trichoderma family. 

This experiment was intiall dur to fly on ~June 1 launch on SpaceX-28, 2023, but eventually launched from Cape Canaveral on Jan 30th 2024. 

This research is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences Grant # 80NSSC21K0577

Arkadipta Bakshi sows the tomato seeds on a custom 3D printed mesh on the surface of a nutrient gel.

Sarah Swanson at Johnson space center practicing crew procedures

Pseudo-astronaut pracices harvesting the samples in preparation for the spaceflight.