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These tomato seeds were flown aboad the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) from 1984 to 1990. LDEF was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on STS-41C and retrieved on Columbia on STS-32. LDEF was a passive, school bus-sized spacecraft that contained dozens of experiements to test their exposure to the space environment; in the case of the seeds, to see what the effects of space radiation and extreme temperatures would have on them. Originally scheduled to be retrieved in 1986, the Challenger disaster forced LDEF to remain on orbit an additional four years. |
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