Space Agriculture: Integrating Plant Physiology, Precision Sensing, and Autonomy for Sustainable Bioregenerative Systems

Bioregenerative life-support systems are a cornerstone for enabling a sustained human presence on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, providing essential services such as food, oxygen, and water recycling while minimizing dependency on Earthly resupply. A defining challenge in this field lies in understanding and manipulating how the space environment—including microgravity, space radiation, and vacuum—uniquely affects plant physiological processes. Recent investigations on the International Space Station, alongside terrestrial analog studies, have illuminated intricate responses in gravitropism, gaseous and fluid exchanges, and photomorphogenesis, yet notable knowledge gaps persist in translating these findings into cultivation protocols that are resilient and effective across extraterrestrial conditions. Furthermore, while new monitoring and automation technologies promise unprecedented insight and control, fully self-sustaining and adaptive cultivation modules that can function through operational constraints—such as limited crew time, communication lags, or emergencies—remain a major research goal.This Research Topic aims to address these intertwined biological and technological barriers by fostering interdisciplinary convergence. Key objectives include elucidating how gravity, radiation, and engineered lighting collectively modulate plant signaling and metabolic networks, which is critical for optimizing crop selection, yield, and nutritional value in space habitats. Further, the initiative prioritizes the advancement and integration of non-destructive sensing modalities—optical, acoustic, and biosensing—for real-time plant health diagnostics, as well as the development of autonomous environmental controls powered by machine learning. The goal is to enable robust, flight-ready plant cultivation modules that dynamically adapt to plant needs with minimal crew intervention, ensuring resilience under the variable and constrained conditions of space.Research in this topic is limited to plant-based bioregenerative life-support systems, with a focus on the interplay between plant physiology, precision monitoring, and autonomous cultivation in the space environment. To gather further insights within these boundaries, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• How microgravity or low gravity, space radiation, air pressure, and artificial lighting alter plant physiological processes such as gravitropic sensing, hormone and ROS pathways, photosynthesis, and nutrient allocation• Identification of physiological biomarkers (e.g., chlorophyll fluorescence, pigment indices, water status, acoustic traits) indicating plant stress, productivity, and metabolic state under space-relevant conditions• Development and validation of non-destructive sensing technologies—including optical, hyperspectral, ultrasonic, and photoacoustic approaches—for real-time plant monitoring in constrained environments• Integration of physiological models with multimodal sensing data via AI and machine learning for closed-loop adaptive control of plant growth parameters• Demonstration and validation of self-optimizing, autonomous cultivation systems in spaceflight experiments or high-fidelity terrestrial analogsWe welcome a range of article types including original research, methods, and reviews. Topic editors: Eiji Goto, Ki-Ho Son, Geonwoo Kim Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81256/space-agriculture-integrating-plant-physiology-precision-sensing-and-autonomy-for-sustainable-bioregenerative-systems