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Space Agriculture has rapidly emerged as a strategic field in human exploration beyond Earth. Producing food, resources, and biological inputs on the Moon, Mars, or in orbital platforms brings unprecedented constraints. These include chronic exposure to ionizing radiation, microgravity, severe constraints on water and energy, and the need for fully closed, efficient production systems. This field is not just relevant for space missions. It generates innovations with direct terrestrial impacts, especially with climate change, the need for agricultural resilience, and the rise of controlled-environment and urban farming.

In this context, the Space Farming Brazil Network has become the country’s leading initiative for off-world agriculture research, development, and innovation. The network brings together nearly 60 researchers from 24 Brazilian research institutions and foreign universities. It integrates expertise in plant biology, microbiology, postharvest technologies, aerospace engineering, radiation physics, computational modeling, and bioprocesses. Its mission is twofold: to advance the development of plant cultivars, production systems, and technologies for space environments, and to generate knowledge relevant to terrestrial challenges such as water scarcity, rising temperatures, and the need for resource-efficient agricultural systems.

The 1st Symposium on Space Agriculture (SIAE) was launched in São José dos Campos, a hub for aerospace science. The event created a forum for collaboration among universities, space agencies, industries, startups, and the government. This first edition brought together 142 participants from 27 Brazilian and 10 international institutions, showing the field's growth. The program included poster sessions, keynotes, panels, workshops on microgravity plant growth, bioregenerative systems, vertical farming, instrumentation, radiation, and sustaining life beyond Earth. Outreach sessions included a guest lecture by Dr. Jim Green (NASA), activities with middle schoolers focused on the importance of space-based research, and visits to aerospace institutions, thereby expanding the symposium’s local and regional impact.

The Proceedings of the 1st SIAE reflect this inaugural momentum. They compile scientific and technological contributions that demonstrate both the diversity and the growing maturity of this emerging field, covering experiments in analogue environments, genetic improvement strategies, the engineering of closed-loop systems, automation, sensing technologies, and dual-use innovations that also benefit terrestrial agriculture. Notably, the proceedings showcase the first Brazilian prototypes of closed-loop plant production systems, research advancing plant stress resilience under space-like conditions, and the launch of pilot projects for collaborative technology testing.

This volume aims to document the state of the art of space agriculture in Brazil, strengthen the visibility of ongoing initiatives, and foster new national and international collaborations to address challenges that concern not only the future of space exploration but also the sustainability of life on Earth.

Organizing Committee of I International Symposium on Space Farming