Seeds of seabuckthorn, Himalayan buckwheat part of experiment on ISS

New Delhi: Seeds of seabuckthorn and buckwheat grown in the cold desert of Ladakh are part of the experiments on board the International Space Station flown by NASA's Crew-11 mission.

Seeds procured from 11 nations across five continents are part of the study spearheaded by US-based bioastronautics firm Jaguar Space, which plans to expose the seeds to microgravity conditions for a week.

The seeds are part of the "Emerging Space Nation's Space for Agriculture & Agriculture for Space" payload that flew to the ISS along with NASA's Crew-11, which lifted off from Florida on Friday and docked onto the orbital lab on Saturday.

The seeds will be brought back by the Crew-10, which is expected to return to Earth later this month.

The seeds grown in Ladakh were sourced by Bengaluru-based space start-up Protoplanet.

"We will study how the seeds react to micro-gravity conditions and their potential use as a food source for long-duration space missions," Siddharth Pandey, Director, Protoplanet, told PTI.

Pandey stated that Protoplanet has contributed sea buckthorn and Himalayan tartary, nutrient-rich plants native to high-altitude regions. The Himalayan tartary is a variety of buckwheat that is nutrient-rich and gluten-free.

On return from space, the seeds will be studied by Indian researchers.

According to Jaguar Space, the World Seeds study examines how seeds react to the unique stresses of the space environment before they begin to grow, focusing on fundamental processes such as the activation of genes and metabolic pathways essential for germination.

This experiment explores the potential of previously unexamined species to contribute to future space agriculture initiatives.

Seeds from the Maldives, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nigeria, Armenia, Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria are part of the experiment.

"Beyond its scientific potential to advance research on climate resilience and global food security, the World Seeds payload represents a meaningful step toward ensuring that, as humanity becomes a spacefaring civilization, the millennia-old knowledge, biodiversity, and cultural heritage of communities around the world are carried forward as an essential part of that journey," said Dr Luis Zea, Founder of Jaguar Space.