ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Space Technol.
Sec. Space Exploration
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frspt.2025.1651978
This article is part of the Research TopicMicroorganisms as Astro-pioneers for Long-term Sustainable Human Presence in SpaceView all articles
Spirulina supported plant growth in regolith simulants and elevated levels of CO2
Provisionally accepted
- 1American Public University System, Charles Town, United States
- 2University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, United States
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A key element for sustainable off-world habitation is the ability to grow food through in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Growth substrates are required to overcome the challenges of ISRU in the space environment, including the use of regolith. Biofertilizers such as algae are a promising avenue for supporting plant growth with ISRU; algae can potentially mitigate the lack of nutrients, alkalinity, heavy-metal contamination, poor water-carrying capacity, and presence of perchlorates in regolith as well as increase plant growth at elevated levels of atmospheric CO2. The blue-green cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis is an ionizing radiation resistant strain with high temperature tolerance and nutritional properties. It has been used successfully as a bio-fertilizer in heavy metal contaminated, highly alkaline terrestrial soils. Our research is a large-scale investigation of the efficacy of spirulina to enhance the growth of Raphanus sativus (Organic Daikon radish) microgreens using lunar and Martian regolith simulants. We present a study of growth for a wide range of regolith simulant-soil mixtures as a function of fertilizer concentration and the level of environmental CO2. This research advances the application of ISRU to enhance self-sufficient, sustainable space exploration and resource use.
Keywords: Microalgae, Spirulina, Biofertilization, daikon radish, regolith, space resourceutilization
Received: 23 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Miller, Trevino and Cauthorn. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kristen A Miller, kristen.miller6@mycampus.apus.edu
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