Research on LED Application in Aerospace Ecological Life Support System

Establishing a Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) is the fundamental way to solve the long-term human spaceflight life support problem, and the cultivation of higher plants is an important component of CELSS, one of which is lighting.
Based on the special requirements of the spatial environment, the light sources used in the cultivation of higher plants in space must have high luminous efficiency, output light waves suitable for plant photosynthesis and light morphology, small size, light weight, long lifespan, high safety and reliability, and no environmental pollution. Compared with other light sources such as cold white fluorescent lamps, high-pressure sodium lamps, and metal halide lamps, LED is more effective in converting light energy into photosynthetically active radiation, and plants have better supplementary lighting effects; In addition, it has the characteristics of long lifespan, small size, light weight, and solid state, so LED is highly valued in ground and space plant cultivation. Research has shown that LED lighting systems can provide illumination with uniform spectral energy distribution, and their efficiency in converting electrical energy into light required by plants is 520 times higher than that of metal halide lamps.