PONDS. Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System

The system my team & I created to go to the International Space Station.

VEGGIE. Vegetation Enclosure to Gestate and Grow Interplanetary Edibles

The enclosure that houses the P.O.N.D.S. system and it’s predecessors.

Above Credit: NASA

“PONDS was an opportunity to do something that no one else has done before. People have been growing plants in space since the Apollo era, but not like this."

- Dave Reed, NASA Counterpart

UNDERSTANDING NASA’S NEEDS

Challenges with NASA’s Current Design:

VEGGIE's First Tenant: BAGS / "Biological Aggregate Growth System"

Each one designed to disperse water evenly across the roots via a capillary mesh.

PROBLEM A: Micro-Gravity: 1 Fluid Dynamics: 0

Astronauts eventually needed to individually see to each bag as water sent to the full system wasn’t evenly dispersed between all 6 bags.

PROBLEM C: Maintenance

The BAGS were heavily pliable and interacting with them meant crushing the root system. As such to harvest or repair BAGS meant potentially damaging them.

PROBLEM B: Capillary Mesh Failure

Even when a bag received proper nutrients, the capillary mesh would eventually clog at the source and cease sending water/nutrients evenly across the roots.

Tenant Troubles: $100k Dud

What works well on Earth, may not in space. ONLY 40% OF ALL BAGS yielded vegetation.

Expectations from NASA’s Scientists:

Dr. Howard Levine

- Understanding the needs, goals & challenges of his undertaking and how my team can play a part in its success.

The Current State of Things

- An identical ISS VEGGIE replication sits on Earth: same Temperature, Humidity, Air Flow, On/Off Cycle. And what happens on the ISS is mimicked on Earth (minus the extreme lack of gravity).

UNDERSTANDING OUR CANVAS

- Toured NASA’s development center, spoke with their model shop & development personal to get an comprehensive understanding of the VEGGIE system.

IMPROVISATION

And because NASA said it would take a month to get us CAD files due to government regulations, we had to improvise. I took photos of every component with my hand in the picture and we measured my hand and used it as a reference to build VEGGIE in CAD.

Detour 1.0

Taking a moment to check out where each payload is prepped prior to launch.

Detour 2.0

Checking out a retired crawler; originally used for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs from 1966 to 2011.

THE JOURNEY TOGETHER

• Navigating the Needs of Consumers & Astronauts in Parallel •

PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT

Re-Inventing Hydroponics & Validating Concepts

Like other projects, the creative process went through multiple rounds of prototyping.

These coincided with rigorous validation tests & committee approvals, which made the creative process unorthodox in that the team had to quickly shift from divergent to convergent thinking.

Right: Function + Material Validation, Below: Quick sketch sessions between tests & approvals.

In-meeting napkin sketches and side discussions with NASA engineers

EXPERIENCE DEVELOPMENT

From Functional to Useful

READY FOR EARTH & ORBIT

The Final Product Designed for Use Aboard the ISS

CAPE CANAVERAL TO THE ISS

Following PONDS on its Journey

P.O.N.D.S. IN THE MEDIA

MISSION PATCH DEVELOPMENT

- Click the image below to see the Patch’s development -

NASA, as a thank you to the people who contribute to the ISS, leaves open a 4” cubed space per project payload to include patches. The patches are logged by an astronaut and, upon returning to earth, are certified whereby verifying their arrival & retrieval from the ISS.