The feasibility and design of the CultCube 12U CubeSat hosting a small Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) for the autonomous cultivation of a small plant in orbit is described. The satellite is aimed at running experiments in fruit plants growing for applications in crewed vehicles for long-term missions in space. CultCube is mainly composed of a pressurized vessel, constituting the outer shell of the ECLSS, and by various environmental controls (water, nutrients, air composition and pressure, light, etc.) aimed at maintaining a survivable habitat for the fruit plants to grow. The plant health status and growth performances is monitored using hyperspectral cameras installed within the vessel, able to sense leaves’ chlorophyll content and temperature, and allowing the estimation of plant volume in all its life cycle phases. The paper study case is addressed to the in-orbit experimental cultivation of a dwarf tomato plant (MicroTom), which was modified for enhancing the anti-oxidants production and for growing in stressful environments. While simulated microgravity tests have been passed by the MicroTom plant, the organism behaviour in a real microgravity environment for a full seed-to-seed cycle needs to be tested. The CultCube 12U CubeSat mission presents no particular requirements on the kind of orbit, whereas its minimum significative duration corresponds to one seed-to-seed cycle for the plant, which is 90 days for the paper study case. In the paper, after an introduction on the importance of an autonomous testbed for plant cultivation, in the perspective of the implementation of bioregenerative systems on-board future manned long-term missions, the satellite design and the MicroTom engineered plant for in-orbit growth are described. In addition to the description of the whole set of subsystems, with focus on the payload and its controllers and instrumentation, the system budgets are presented. Finally, the first tests conducted by the authors are briefly reported.

描述了托管小型环境控制和生命支持系统（ECLSS）以便在轨道上自动种植小型植物的CultCube 12U CubeSat的可行性和设计。该卫星旨在在果树上进行实验，这些果树可用于载人飞行器中以进行长期太空飞行。CultCube主要由构成ECLSS外壳的加压容器和各种环境控制（水，养分，空气成分和压力，光照等）组成，旨在维持果树生长的可生存栖息地。使用安装在容器中的高光谱摄像头监控植物的健康状况和生长性能，该摄像头能够感应叶片的叶绿素含量和温度，并可以估算植物在其整个生命周期阶段的体积。本文的研究案例针对矮化番茄植物（MicroTom）的在轨实验栽培，该植物经过改良以增强抗氧化剂的产生并在压力环境下生长。尽管MicroTom工厂已通过了模拟微重力测试，但仍需要测试真实的微重力环境中从种子到种子整个周期的生物行为。CultCube 12U CubeSat任务对轨道的种类没有特殊要求，而其最小有效持续时间相当于该植物从种子到种子的一个周期，对于纸本研究案例而言，这是90天。在介绍了自动测试平台对植物种植的重要性之后，本文从未来载人长期任务的机载生物再生系统的角度出发，描述了卫星设计和由MicroTom设计的用于在轨生长的工厂。除了对整个子系统的描述之外，还着重于有效负载及其控制器和仪表，并提出了系统预算。最后，简要报告了作者进行的首次测试。