MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian scientists will not have enough time to create a new greenhouse for studying plant behavior in orbit before the end of the life cycle of the International Space Station (ISS), Vladimir Sychev, deputy director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said.
"Unfortunately, the modified Lada greenhouse that we made died with the Progress [the Progress MS-04 supply spacecraft, which crashed as a result of the failure of the third stage of the Soyuz-U rocket on December 1, 2016]. We currently do not have the resources to restore it," Sychev said.
"Developing a new greenhouse would take at least five years, and maybe more," he said. "Therefore, there is no point in building a new greenhouse for the ISS, because it may be that we'll be ready only when the station is ceasing its existence," he said.
At the same, Energia is coordinating work on the project Vitocycle. "This is an attempt to create a standard greenhouse, but there are many problems in this work. Therefore, the prospects of greenhouses are not very good," Sychev said.
Oleg Kotov, another deputy director of the IBMP, said the U.S. segment of the ISS has a greenhouse and that the U.S. side is offering Russia a chance to use it.
"This is one of the approaches that is now actively developing: reformatting joint scientific research. All partners understand that we are nearing the end of the ISS's functioning cycle," Kotov said.
There is no point for any side to create new equipment with long execution periods, he said. This applies to all participants in the ISS project.
"Therefore, we have an idea: let's take all the equipment that there is on the station and say 'Use it if it suits you.' There is a greenhouse. The same applies to all equipment that is available on the station," Kotov said.