Lai Ka-ying witnesses world's first double-generation rice harvest on Tiangong space station 

Hong Kong's first payload specialist Lai Ka-ying, who is aboard China's Tiangong space station with other Shenzhou-23 astronauts, has harvested rice grown in orbit. This marked the world's first "two consecutive generations of cultivation" for space-grown rice.

According to the latest footage released by the China Manned Space Agency, the crew has completed the sampling of the rice crop, which was developed in an experiment utilizing a specialized ecological life-support module roughly the size of a microwave.

The study featured a designed control group, comparing seeds that had never been to space with multi-generational descendant seeds of a rice crop harvested on the space station in 2022 and subsequently bred on Earth for three generations.

During the growth cycle, Lai filmed the rice heading and seeding under microgravity, documenting the orbital crop's development.

The footage also shows the crew carefully collecting the rice ears and seeds, with a portion of the harvested samples placed in an ultra-low temperature storage unit at minus 80 degrees to preserve them. 

These samples will be returned to Earth in the spacecraft's reentry capsule, where scientists will conduct comprehensive analyses.

Zheng Huiqiong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, emphasized the scientific value of the mission as it represents the world’s first continuous cultivation of two generations of rice in a space station, which is invaluable for understanding how long-term microgravity affects genetic stability in crops.

𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓