Soilless cultivation of soybean for Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSSs): a literature review and the experience of the MELiSSA Project - Food characterization Phase I.

Higher plants play a key role in Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSSs) for long term missions in Space, by regenerating air through the photosynthetic CO2 absorption and O2 emission, recovering water through the transpiration and recycling waste products through the mineral nutrition. In addition, plants could provide fresh food to integrate the crew diet and help to preserve the astronauts wellbeing. The ESA program MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) aims to conceive an artificial bioregenerative ecosystem for resources regeneration, based on both microorganisms and higher plants. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] is one of the four candidate species studied for soilless (hydroponic) cultivation in MELiSSA, because of the high nutritional value of seeds. Within the MELiSSA program - Food characterization Phase I, the aim of the researches carried out on soybean at the University of Naples was to select the most suitable European cultivars for cultivation in BLSS. In this context, a concise review on the state of the art of soybean cultivation in Space-oriented experiments and a summary of the research activity for the preliminary theoretical selection and the subsequent agronomical evaluation of 4 cultivars will be presented in this paper.