By Wu Yuehui, Yu Jianbin The third batch of space scientific experimental samples from China's Tiangong space station were delivered to scientists after a return capsule, carrying astronauts of the Shenzhou-14 crew, touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Dec. 4, Beijing…
Chinese astronauts onboard the Shenzhou XIV spacecraft have returned with the world's first rice seeds produced in orbit, a feat that allows scientists to probe the effects of microgravity on rice growth and find a sustainable food source for long-term space explorations.
Chinese scientists have completed the life-cycle growth experiments of rice and Arabidopsis in the Chinese space station and successfully obtained their seeds, said the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Monday.
A Chinese research team has yielded rice seeds from parent rice seeds that had germinated, grown and matured after 120 days on a full life cycle in China’s Space Station. This is the first time that seed-to-seed rice breeding was achieved in space, China News Network learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences on Monday.
With the return of the Shenzhou-14 crew on Sunday night, the third batch of space science experiment samples that arrived with the return capsule were delivered to Beijing in the early hours of Monday, including the world s first rice seedlings harvested in space.