Digital Twin Modelling of Lettuce Growth Under Extreme Earth Conditions on Earth – a Very First Step to Plant Growth in Outer Space

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dc.contributor.authorEscriba-Gelonch, M.
dc.contributor.authorLiang, S.
dc.contributor.authorLantin, S.
dc.contributor.authorLong, N.V.D.
dc.contributor.authorHessel, V.
dc.date.issued2025
dc.descriptionOnlinePubl. Available online 4 August 2025.
dc.description.abstractInvestigation of space plant growth under real conditions is restricted currently to studies at the International Space Station (ISS), satellites, and suborbital rocket flights. This study aims at informing controlled environment agriculture under stress, with potential application to space analogue modelling. Space studies suffer from limitations in repeatability and failures of process control have been reported. The value of space studies could possibly could be amplified, when there is a possibility to reproduce the space experiment on Earth, and, at best, performing this in real-time to inform and optimize the space experiment. Therefore, we propose, for the first time, the concept of ‘physical twin-sender’ (“space”) and ‘physical twin-receiver’ (“Earth”), as a communicative and finally decision-making interaction within a digital twin concept. To test the efficacy of commercial machine-leaning modelling of plant growth for these connected physical twins, lettuce growth was investigated on a mountain with extreme weather (physical twin-sender) and the extreme conditions were replicated in a growth chamber (physical twin-receiver). This follows ESA’s credo to develop joint space-Earth engineering challenges and NASA’s ‘digital triplet’ framework. In this lieu, lettuce is grown in pots with soil and as hydroponic solution.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityShu Liang, Nguyen Van Duc Long, Stephen Lantin, Marc Escribà-Gelonch, Volker Hessel
dc.identifier.citationClean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 2025; 1-24
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s10098-025-03293-8
dc.identifier.issn1618-954X
dc.identifier.issn1618-9558
dc.identifier.orcidLiang, S. [0000-0003-2310-2539]
dc.identifier.orcidHessel, V. [0000-0002-9494-1519]
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/147777
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherSpringer
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/CE230100015
dc.rights© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-025-03293-8
dc.subjectDigital twins; Plant stress; Modelling; Space farming; Algorithm; Artifical Intelligence (AI); Precision Agriculture; Space Missions
dc.titleDigital Twin Modelling of Lettuce Growth Under Extreme Earth Conditions on Earth – a Very First Step to Plant Growth in Outer Space
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished online

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