Alain Berinstain

Development of a potassium-selective optode for hydroponic nutrient solution monitoring.

Highly efficient and reliable plant growth such as that required in biological life support systems for future space-based missions can be better achieved with knowledge of ion concentrations within the hydroponic nutrient solution. This paper reports on the development and application of ion-selective bulk optodes to plant growth systems. Membranes for potassium-selective sensing are reported that have been tailored so that their dynamic range is centred on potassium activities within typical nutrient solution recipes. The developed sensors have been shown to exhibit a potassium activity measuring range from 0.134 to 117 mM at pH 6.0. These bulk optodes show full scale response on the order of several minutes. They show minimal interference to other cations and meet worst-case selectivity requirements for potassium monitoring in the considered half strength Hoagland solution. When continuously immersed in nutrient solution, these sensors demonstrated predicable lifetimes on the order of 50h. The developed instrument for absorption-based measurements including light source, mini-spectrometer and optode probe is presented. Custom instrument control and monitoring software including a spectral normalization procedure, use of a dual-wavelength absorbance ratio technique and automatic adjustment for pH variation result in an instrument that is self-calibrating and one that can account for effects such as light source fluctuations, membrane thickness variations and a variety of other factors. The low mass, low volume nature of bulk optode sensing systems, make them a promising technology for future space-based plant production systems. Their low-cost and technology transfer potential suggest that they could provide terrestrial growers a new and reliable mechanism to obtain ion-selective knowledge of their nutrient solution, improving yields, reducing costs and aiding in compliance to continually more stringent environmental regulation.

Deployment of a Fully-Automated Green Fluorescent Protein Imaging System in a High Arctic Autonomous Greenhouse

Higher plants are an integral part of strategies for sustained human presence in space. Space-based greenhouses have the potential to provide closed-loop recycling of oxygen, water and food. Plant monitoring systems with the capacity to remotely observe the condition of crops in real-time within these systems would permit operators to take immediate action to ensure optimum system yield and reliability. One such plant health monitoring technique involves the use of reporter genes driving fluorescent proteins as biological sensors of plant stress. In 2006 an initial prototype green fluorescent protein imager system was deployed at the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse located in the Canadian High Arctic. This prototype demonstrated the advantageous of this biosensor technology and underscored the challenges in collecting and managing telemetric data from exigent environments. We present here the design and deployment of a second prototype imaging system deployed within and connected to the infrastructure of the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse. This is the first imager to run autonomously for one year in the un-crewed greenhouse with command and control conducted through the greenhouse satellite control system. Images were saved locally in high resolution and sent telemetrically in low resolution. Imager hardware is described, including the custom designed LED growth light and fluorescent excitation light boards, filters, data acquisition and control system, and basic sensing and environmental control. Several critical lessons learned related to the hardware of small plant growth payloads are also elaborated.

Canada's space protein crystal growth program prepares for ISS

In preparation for utilizing the International Space Station (ISS), the Canadian Space Agencys Microgravity Sciences Program (CSA MSP) is developing space hardware and supporting science in order to meet the needs of the Canadian scientific community. The utilisation philosophy includes a permanent presence on ISS on an EXPRESS rack. A Microgravity Vibration Isolation Mount (MIM) Base Unit will host simple visiting payloads in each of our research fields of materials science, protein crystal growth, and fluid science. Ground support, especially in the field of protein crystal growth (PCG), will be emphasized, in order to increase science success. Through the previous PCG missions the CSA has gained experience in this field. With our accumulated knowledge and an opportunity to utilize the Canadian allocation on ISS, we are now in a good position to fulfill the requirement of providing access to space through the use of a new, Canadian-designed apparatus built to meet our particular needs. The hardware development process, ground operations, and science support are being addressed as a single program, sharing resources at different phases of the project. The five main components of the program that will be discussed in this project are: Concept studies, Flight hardware development, Benchmark protein set, CSA PCG Mission Support Centre, and Science support.

Segmentation of imaged plants captured by a fluorescent imaging system

This paper presents a smart algorithm that segments the different parts of a plant image. The processed image is actually produced of two bands, visible and fluorescence, generated by a plants health imaging system that we designed at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The main design criteria are precision and the speed of classification. The proposed algorithm is based on vector extraction - a feature vector is extracted for each class (leaf, stem, root and background) with the help of a pair of images containing the gray levels in regular image and fluorescent, which yields a two-dimensional vector. Using Pattern Recognition techniques, the algorithm scans all the image pixels and assigns them to their respective class. The obtained field results shows that with the characterization method developed and the use of clustering algorithms, the goal of segmentation of the plant was accomplished with as little as 8.75% error rate and a classification time of only 35 sec.

The Canadian Space Agency's Microgravity Sciences Program: International Space Station Utilization

In preparation for utilizing the International Space Station (ISS), the Canadian Space Agency’s Microgravity Sciences Program (CSA MSP) is developing space hardware and supporting science in order to meet the needs of the Canadian scientific community. The utilization philosophy includes a permanent presence on ISS on an EXPRESS rack. A Microgravity vibration Isolation Mount (MIM) Base Unit will host simple visiting payloads in each of our research fields of materials science, protein crystal growth, and fluid science. Ground support, especially in the field of protein crystal growth, will be emphasized, in order to increase science success.

Canadian microgravity sciences program - The International Space Station era

With the recent launch of the first element of the International Space Station (Zarya) and the success of the first Shuttle flight dedicated to the assembly of KS, the human race is embarking in a new era of space exploration, development and scientific research. For the fust time since the beginning of the exploration of space more than 20 nations have joined efforts for the design, building and maintaining of a laboratory in space. Modest compared to what was anticipated by W.V.Braun and Arthur C. Clark, but gigantic if we look at all the efforts necessary to build the ES. Canada is partner in this major endeavour. With our contribution, the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), Canada will have access to about 2.3% of the resources of the Space Station and this will represent a tremendous opportunity for Canadian scientists and Canadian companies. For more than 10 years the Canadian Space Agency, through its Microgravity Science Program, has been a key player, often leading the international community, in the utilization of the unique microgravity conditions in Space for the research and development. A wide range of experiments have been conducted in space (fluid physics, material science, etc) and recently through the NASA Phase 1 Program, CSA has conducted many experiment, aboard the Mir Space Station, totaling more than 3000 hours of operation, The experience gained with this project has been excellent and has been used for the planning of the utilization of the International Space Station. At this time, the allocation of funds for the next planning period has not been approved by the Copyright Q I998 by the American Institute of Aeronautics And AstronauticsJnc. All rights reserved 1 Canadian government. If we are allowed to speculate this paper presents the proposed program and research activities to be sponsored by the Microgravity Science Program (MSP) of the Canadian Space Agency. Figure 1: W.V.Braun Space Station (1952) Courtesy of NASA MICROGRAVITY SCIENCES PROGRAM The CSA mission statement is very clear: “ The Canadian Space Agency is committed to leading the development and applications of the space knowledge for the benefit of Canadians and Humanity”. It has been the basis for the development of the following program. The program will be tailored to make efficient use of the Canadian allocation of the resources of the ISS as well as taking into account the particular nature of the Canadian scientific community and industry. With the experience gamed during the NASA Phase 1 Program it has been possible to clearly identify . . . . American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (c)l999 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics domains where Canada has an advantage and a lead. With the utilization of the Microgravity Vibration Isolation Mount (MIM) (see paper presented at this conference) CSA has been able to begin the study of the effects of g-jitter in a systematic way. The ISS science program will continue in this direction. ISS will also offer the possibility of conducting long duration experiment of interest to material scientists and crystal grower but will also allow the possibility of conducting experiments from the ground. CSA will put the emphasis on telescience and it is anticipated that scientist will be able to monitor experiment from their laboratories with assistance from CSA’s operation personnel. The research program will be balanced between fundamental research and applied research. Fundamental research is important for the understanding of different phenomena that could ultimately be applied to day to day problems. Applied research will be promoted in areas where industrial benefits can be generated in the short and medium time frame. Based on the experience gained in the past, the level of support required to support an active research program should be divided among, science research, payload developmenf flight cost and operation, and program support. The proposed split will be 40% for Scientific Research, 30% for Payload Development, 25% for Flight Cost and Operation and 5% for Program Support. For the scientific research, the breakdown of funding is anticipated to be 50% for Material Science, 30% for Fluid Physics and 20% for Biotechnology (non-living). For the scientific research, 60% will go to University and 40% to