NASA has awarded a prestigious Group Silver Achievement Award to the team behind a project known as Biological Experiment-01, which includes Michigan State University researchers led by Federica Brandizzi.

Biological Experiment-01, also shortened to BioExperiment-01 and BioExpt-01, was a collection of four separate but related projects that flew aboard NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I mission that orbited the moon and returned to Earth. Together, the projects allowed scientists to study new questions about how various life forms respond to space travel.

For its part, the Spartan contingent launched a seed experiment with the goal of helping prepare future astronauts to grow healthy crops away from Earth.

“This is really about understanding how we can establish and sustain life outside of this planet,” Brandizzi said before the Nov. 16, 2022 launch of Artemis I. “We need to have plants that can survive long-term space travel for generations.”

The Orion spacecraft carrying the seeds splashed down back on Earth on Dec.11, 2022. The seeds returned to Brandizzi, an MSU Research Foundation Professor in the Department of Plant Biology and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory in January.