CIP / THE INTERNATIONAL POTATO CENTER POTATOES ON MARS

From our base at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, we gave people around the world an incredible opportunity to watch history in the making – Growing Potatoes on Mars. Twenty-four hours a day, people were glued to our dedicated portal: http://potatoes.space/mars/. Word spread fast and through specially fitted cameras inside our CubeSat, 100 million people around the world came together virtually, to watch the live feed as we attempted to cultivate a new variety of potato in Mars-like conditions, to see which, if any, would grow.
We assembled, and collaborated with, a cross disciplinary team of CIP, UTEC and NASA scientists representing the fields of agriculture, plant breeding, astrobiology, medicine and physics. The NASA and UTEC scientists then designed and built an innovative CubeSat. The hermetically sealed device with a range of monitoring sensors was created specifically to replicate conditions on Mars – including Martian atmospheric pressure, extreme temperature, CO2 levels, light and radiation.