Seeds of seabuckthorn and buckwheat grown within the chilly desert of Ladakh are part of the experiments on board the International Space Station flown by NASA’s Crew-11 mission.
Seeds procured from 11 nations throughout 5 continents are part of the research spearheaded by U.S.-based bioastronautics agency Jaguar Space, which plans to show the seeds to microgravity circumstances for per week.
The seeds are part of the “Emerging Space Nation’s Space for Agriculture & Agriculture for Space” payload that flew to the ISS together with NASA’s Crew-11, which lifted off from Florida on Friday (August 1, 2025) and docked onto the orbital lab on Saturday (August 2, 2025).
The seeds might be introduced again by the Crew-10, which is anticipated to return to Earth later this month.
The seeds grown in Ladakh had been sourced by Bengaluru-based house start-up Protoplanet.
“We will study how the seeds react to micro-gravity conditions and their potential use as a food source for long-duration space missions,” Siddharth Pandey, Director, Protoplanet, informed PTI.
Mr. Pandey acknowledged that Protoplanet has contributed sea buckthorn and Himalayan tartary, nutrient-rich crops native to high-altitude areas. The Himalayan tartary is a spread of buckwheat that’s nutrient-rich and gluten-free.
On return from house, the seeds might be studied by Indian researchers.
According to Jaguar Space, the World Seeds research examines how seeds react to the distinctive stresses of the house surroundings earlier than they start to develop, focusing on basic processes such because the activation of genes and metabolic pathways important for germination.
This experiment explores the potential of beforehand unexamined species to contribute to future house agriculture initiatives.
Seeds from the Maldives, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nigeria, Armenia, Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria are part of the experiment.
“Beyond its scientific potential to advance research on climate resilience and global food security, the World Seeds payload represents a meaningful step toward ensuring that, as humanity becomes a spacefaring civilisation, the millennia-old knowledge, biodiversity, and cultural heritage of communities around the world are carried forward as an essential part of that journey,” mentioned Dr. Luis Zea, Founder of Jaguar Space.
