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Summer 2006 Maintenance and Research Activities in the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse

Our research team arrived at Devon Island on July 7, 2006, to begin maintenance and improvements of the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse systems. All systems survived the winter and were operational upon our arrival–a first since 2002. The greenhouse produces and manages its own power, has its own command and telemetry systems, a data acquisition system making measurements, and a control system maintaining the environment.

During the long arctic winters, the wind generators are the only source of power. Solar panels are useless since the sun does not appear for over three months.

Our biggest job in 2006 is to replace the data acquisition system with equipment designed to function at lower temperatures. We are also adding four new cameras to increase monitoring and to provide close-up views of plants along with wider pictures of the general area. Furthermore, we are implementing an actively controlled nutrient control system to measure the pH and electrical conductivity of plant nutrient solutions and to adjust them as the plants grow and metabolize. Finally, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Florida in Gainesville, we will begin to grow Arabidopsis plants to track plant stress.

Our two-week schedule in Devon Island is ambitious, but all the new systems have first been tested in our duplicate greenhouse at CSA headquarters in Longueuil. We expect to be able to remotely operate all the new systems from our home laboratories during winter 2006-2007.

As humans prepare to explore the solar system once again with expeditions to the Moon and to Mars, such missions will call upon biological life support systems to curb the weight and cost of food, water, and air launched from Earth. Greenhouses will likely be integrated in these support systems. The prototypes developed in the Arthur C. Clarke Mars Greenhouse on Devon Island will help design life support systems adapted to the Moon or Mars.

Some of the greenhouse team working in the greenhouse.

The 2006 research team consists of Dr. Alain Berinstain, Richard Giroux (Visiting Fellow at the Canadian Space Agency), Matthew Bamsey (PhD candidate at the University of Guelph and CSA), Philip Neron (co-op student at the Canadian Space Agency from Ecole de technologie superieure), Thomas Graham (PhD candidate at the University of Guelph), Anna-Lisa Paul and Rob Ferl from the University of Florida at Gainesville, and Stephen Braham from Simon Fraser University.

The Haughton-Mars Project Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse was donated by SpaceRef Interactive, Inc. and established at the project's Base Camp (now Haughton-Mars Project Research Station) with initial sponsorship support from NASA. The greenhouse facility is currently managed and operated by the Mars Institute, in partnership with the SETI Institute and Simon Fraser University. Dr. Alain Berinstain of the Canadian Space Agency and the University of Guelph is the current Principal Investigator in the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse. The ongoing investigation is supported by the Canadian Space Agency, the University of Guelph, Simon Fraser University, and the SETI Institute.