Home Recent News Research and Development Commercial Activities Space Flight Hardware Space Flight History Education and Outreach Articles and Publications Links Contact
 
CPBF in EXPRESS Rack
CPBF mounted in an EXPRESS rack.

Soybeans in CPBF
Soybean plants growing in CPBF.

The Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF) provides a large enclosed, environmentally controlled plant growth chamber designed to support commercial and fundamental plant research on board the International Space Station (ISS) for continuous operation of at least one year without maintenance. It is configured as a quad locker payload to be mounted in a standard EXPRESS Rack in the US Lab Module. CPBF integrates the proven ASC-GC and ADVASC technologies with newly developed fault tolerance and recovery technology to increase overall efficiency, reliability and robustness. In addition, CPBF provides single-level contained, embedded glove ports for the crew to sample plant materials or conduct experiments. It is designed based on an open architecture concept to allow critical subsystems to be removed and replaced on board the ISS.

Click here for additional CPBF pictures.

CPBF Specifications

Growing Space
    Shoot area:      2,443 cm2
    Shoot height:      45 cm
    Root area:      2443 cm2
    Root height:      5 cm

Temperature
    Method:      active control using thermoelectric coolers
    Range:      15 - 40 oC
    Accuracy:      ± 0.5 oC from the set point
    Uniformity:      ± 1 oC within plant canopy plane

Humidity
    Method:      active control using Astropore® technology
    Range:      35 - 95 % RH
    Accuracy:      ± 3 % RH from the set point
    Uniformity:      ± 5 % RH within plant canopy plane
Lighting
    Method:      (1) high intensity red (670 nm), blue (470 nm) and green (525 nm) light emitting diodes (LEDs)
(2) high output fluorescent lights
    Intensity:      (1) LED: 0 - 900 μmol/m2/s for red, 0 - 120 μmol/m2/s for blue and 0 - 120 μmol/m2/s for green measured at bottom of the chamber
(2) Fluorescent: 450 μmol/m2/s, measured at bottom of the chamber
    Control:      photon flux programmably controlled with ± 5% of setpoint
    Uniformity:      ± 10 % within plane, 10 cm from the light source

Water/Nutrient Delivery
    Method:      capillary mass transfer through rooting matrix via porous materials
    Control:      solution pH range 4.5 - 7.5 ±0.2

Atmosphere Composition
    CO2:      300 - 2000 ppm ± 50 ppm or ± 5% of the setpoint
    Ethylene:      < 50 ppb by photocatalytic oxidation

EXPRESS Rack Compatible Data/Video Interface
    Allows for real-time data telemetry, remote commanding, and video (NTSC format) downlink

Content by WCSAR
Last modified: February 6, 2006