Solutions to Overcome Technical Constraints and Achieve Scientific Goals of the Multi-trop Experiment

Sustainable development in space is based on affordable initiatives. Reuse of hardware is a strategy increasingly adopted to reduce the experiment costs, but its success relies on adapting the biological systems to experiment units. MULTI-TROP won the Youth ISS Science (YiSS) call promoted by Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) in 2017 and was performed on the ISS during the VITA mission. Kayser Italia provided to ASI the industrial support services for the new payload integration process, operations and logistics. The experiment was aimed to study hydrotropism and chemotropism in roots of seeds germinating in microgravity. The experiment unit (EU) was selected within a set of previously flown EUs designed by Kayser Italia. Use of a hardware designed for a different experiment was a challenge and technical constraints got complicated by the interaction with environmental conditions and timing of pre-flight and in-flight operations. Several constraints had to be solved to achieve MULTI-TROP scientific goals. Biological tests allowed an accurate selection of the plant species on the basis of the hardware design and environmental conditions expected during the experiment. In addition, arrangements of the experimental setup were necessary. Overall, the experiment was successfully performed and the scientific goals were fully achieved.