International Astronautical Congress

Plants for Space

We are excited to be part of the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), September 29 - October 3, in Sydney. 

This year’s theme, “Sustainable Space: Resilient Earth”, aligns with our mission at Plants for Space, where we use the challenges of space to drive innovation in sustainable food and bioresource production here on Earth.

P4S is developing technologies to enable humans to survive and thrive in space, reducing the dependence on constant resupply, and using this lens to transform the sustainability of food and bioresource production on Earth. Our research is guided by four missions on zero-waste plants, complete plant-based nutrition, on-demand bioresource production, and future ready workforce and society. 

You can explore our Centre in the Plants for Space Launch Video, our missions through a number of short case studies, here, and you can find out more about our achievements in the first year of the Centre in our 2024 Annual Report, here. 

Plants for Space at IAC 2025

We are excited to present our IAC 2025 Special Session on "Connecting Country to Deep Space: Ancient Lessons in Sustainability for Agriculture Beyond Earth", on Tuesday September 30. 

Join us around the campfire for a journey blending cutting-edge research, with ancient wisdom. Facilitated by Deen Sanders, explore innovations in plant science, Controlled Environment Agriculture and Space habitats to sustain human health and wellbeing in deep Space with us, through the storytelling of the world’s oldest astronomers. Discover the profound connections between Space and country, and how ancient lessons of fragility and scarcity gathered from the Australian landscape are linked to sustainability, Space travel and resilient food production systems on Earth. 

Speakers in this session include Chris Hewett (Australian Space Agency), Matthew Gilliham (ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space), Aude Vignelles (Vignelles Space), Jennifer Bromley (JAM Agritech), Raymond Wheeler (NASA) and Koichi Wakata (Axiom Space). 

Find out more about our special session (September 30, 16.20-17.30), here, or keep an eye out on our LinkedIn for further IAC updates. 

In fact, you may be holding an example of this innovation right now. Our Plants for Space self-watering planter is based on a design by Parallelgoods, and is 3D-printed from PLA (polylactic acid), a bioplastic made by microbes that convert plant sugars - products of photosynthesis - into lactic acid. This acid is purified and polymerised into PLA, which, unlike fossil fuel-based plastics, can break down under industrial composting into just water and carbon dioxide, resources that plants can use again. 

Looking ahead, researchers are developing new bioplastics that degrade more easily, with the strength and flexibility to replace fossil-based plastics in many applications—whether on Earth or in space. We’re even working to engineer plants to produce these bioplastics directly, simplifying manufacturing and enabling sustainable, on-site resource production for future space missions.