Off-Earth manufacturing of crop-friendly Lunar greenhouses (FARMING)

Bio-Regenerative Life Support Systems (BRLSS) based on microbial conversion of organic matter followed by photosynthesis are foreseen as important technologies to produce food, oxygen and pure water during long-term human space missions. Previous scientific investigations towards plants in BRLSS have ranged from fundamental plant physiology under fractional gravity conditions to applied edible crop cultivation in Earth analogue constructions, including various techno-biological aspects such as illumination alternatives, nutrient delivery strategies and cultivation strategies.The span of previous research corroborated the challenges associated with the design and construction of Lunar greenhouses, including the mass and volume of materials required, installation and maintenance complexity, and launcher capabilities and costs. One approach to Lunar greenhouse design is the use of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) to manufacture structures from Lunar materials.The Off-Earth manufacturing of crop-friendly Lunar greenhouses project, referred as Farming, outlines the conceptualization of a hypothetical Lunar greenhouse named ReLGreen module, designed for Off-Earth manufacturing using a proposed novel Lightweight Expanded Regolith (LER) technology.