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Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF)
12.05.08
Scientists and payload developers can get more information on International Space Station research facilities by contacting the ISS Payloads Office or at 281-244-6187.

Overview | Description | Applications | Operations | Results | Publications | Images

Facility/Payload Overview

Brief Facility Summary

Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF), is a fully automated facility and can conduct plant bioscience research on the Interational Space Station. It occupies the lower half of the EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (EXPRESS) Rack plus two International Subrack Interface Standard (ISIS) drawers, providing an large enclosed and environmentally controlled chamber with two-levels of containment.

Facility Manager(s)

  • Weijia Zhou, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin - Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics, Madison, WI

    • Co-Facility Manager(s)

    Information Pending

    Facility Developer

    Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics, Madison, WI

    Sponsoring Agency

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

    Expeditions Assigned

    Information Pending

    Previous ISS Missions

    The Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF) has not been utilized in microgravity.

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    Facility/Payload Description

    Facility Summary

    • The purpose of Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF) is to support long-term commercial and scientific plant research in a microgravity environment on-board the International Space Station (ISS).


    • The controlled parameters of the chamber include temperature, relative humidity, light intensity, atmospheric composition and fluid nutrient delivery. In addition, CPBF provides a pair of single-level-contained soft glove ports for in-flight access of the experiment materials/samples or transferring them between CPBF and other ISS based facilities.


    • CPBF is designed to operate autonomously with state-of-the-art telescience and fault tolerance/recovery capabilities to increase overall system efficiency, reliability, robustness, and flexibility.

    Description

    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 EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (EXPRESS) Rack in the US Lab Module. CPBF integrates the proven microgravity plant growth 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.

    Growing Space has a shoot area of 2,443 cm2; shoot height of 45 cm; root area of 2443 cm2 and root height of 5 cm. The temperature uses a method-active control using thermoelectric coolers witha range of +15 degrees C - 40 degrees C with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 degrees C from the set point; tempearure is uniform within +/-1 degree C in the plant canopy plane with a humidity range of 35 - 95% relative humidity (RH) and accuracy within +/- 3% RH from the set point and uniformity of +/-5 % RH within plant canopy plane.

    CPBF uses a high intensity red (670 nm), blue (470 nm) and green (525 nm) light emitting diodes (LEDs) along with high output fluorescent lights. The LEDs have an intensity of 0 - 900 mmol/m2/s for red, 0 - 120 mmol/m2/s for blue and 0 - 120 mmol/m2s for green measured at bottom of the chamber; the fluorescent lights have an intensity of 450 mmol/m2/s, measured at bottom of the chamber.

    The water/nutrient delivery is performed by capillary mass transfer through rooting matrix via porous materials. The control-solution has a pH range 4.5 - 7.5, +/-0.2 The atmosphere composition of CPBF is 300 - 2000 ppm +/- 50 ppm of carbon dioxide. CPBF also includes EXPRESS Rack Compatible Data/Video Interface and allows for real-time data telemetry, remote commanding, and video (NTSC format) downlink.

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    Operations

    Facility Operations

    CPBF requires ISS-provided cooling water to dissipate the heat generated by CPBF. The ISS crew needs to connect the EXPRESS Moderat Temperatue Loop, cooling water (one supply and one return) to CPBF. The CPBF electrical and power interface is composed of a 28 VDC EXPRESS power connector, data/video connector, and power switches to allow the crew to power on/off the CPBF and its subsystems. ISS crew needs to connect CPBF power cable to the power connector on the EXPRESS front panel, CPBF data/video cable to the Data connector on the EXPRESS front panel, the sensor and control cables between CPBF front panel and ISIS drawer front panel, and air and water tubing according to the CPBF manual. The CPBF user interface is composed of a LCD touch screen to allow the crew to monitor CPBF's operating conditions, to change the set points for chamber environmental conditions, and to perform diagnosis if a malfunction occurs.

    CPBF provides one level of containment. Soft glove ports allow the crew to sample the plant materials from the chamber, and quick-disconnect ports allow the crew to take samples from the water and nutrient reservoirs.

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    Results/More Information

    Information Pending

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    Availability

    Information Pending

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    Related Web Sites

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    Publications

    Results Publications

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      Related Publications

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        Images

        imageThe 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). Image courtesy of WSCAR.
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        imageSoybean plants growing in the Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF) on Eartk. Image courtesy of WSCAR.
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        Information Provided and Updated by the ISS Program Scientist's Office
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