Plants for Space: Advancing Research for the Future

You are invited to an exclusive opportunity to meet the brilliant minds behind the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space initiative! Plants for Space is on a mission to feed astronauts in space while paving the way for more sustainable food production here on Earth. From mastering crop growth in microgravity to designing the next plant-based innovations, our researchers are leading the charge.

We invite you to step into our immersive Mars experience where we will brief you on our missions for the upcoming seven years of research, and reveal the fascinating breakthroughs happening at our Centre. We want to strengthen our ties with you, our valued contacts in the media, because whether it’s sending duckweed into space or discovering new crops for the future, there are remarkable, newsworthy stories growing in our lab!

Please join us for the following: 

09.30: Welcome to campus: immersive Mars ‘experience’, introducing the missions of Plants for Space through our Virtual Vertical Farm 

09.45: Introduction of Plants for Space current news stories

• University of Adelaide P4S researcher collaborating with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), sending duckweed into space with the Mapheus project in November 2024 
• Groundbreaking Simple Seeds outreach project, allowing students across Australia to participate in real space-based plant experiments
• Plants for Space sending plant material to the Moon for the LEAF project in 2026

10.00: Q&A with Centre Director Professor Matthew Gilliham  

10.15: Optional Plants for Space gallery visit, opportunity to connect with the communication team  

10.30: Close of morning