The orange zinnia flowers, which are not uncommon in the south-west of the United States, withered in the ISS in later December, as the space station's crew experimented with cultivating flowering and vegetable crops in outer space.
First ever flower grown in space makes its debut! #SpaceFlower #zinnia #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/2uGYvwtLKr
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) 16 января 2016
The experiments began a year ago, and on August 10, 2015, the ISS crew for the first time managed to grow and eat lettuce.
The vegetables were grown with the help of the Veggie system, which was installed in the ISS in May 2015.
Despite the fact that the zinnia plant is inedible, the ISS crew specifically chose these flowers in order to better understand the process of growing plants in space, according to Trent Smith, program manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"Growing zinnia plants will help advance our knowledge of how plants flower in the Veggie growth system, and will enable fruiting plants like tomatoes to be grown and eaten in space using Veggie as the in-orbit garden," Smith said.
