Famine affects 842 million people globally and climate change is making food security and malnutrition worse. The International Potato Center wanted to prove that potatoes are a super crop that hold the key to reversing world hunger and saving millions of lives thanks to their high yields, nutritional value and ability to grow anywhere. Potatoes have survived in areas where security crops such as wheat, corn or rice have failed.

The NASA and UTEC scientists then designed and built an innovative CubeSat. The hermetically sealed device with a range of monitoring sensors was created specifically to replicate conditions on Mars – including Martian atmospheric pressure, extreme temperature, CO2 levels, light and radiation.The CubeSat was set up in strict laboratory conditions and the key ingredient, soil almost identical to that on Mars, was trucked in from Peru’s Pampas de la Joya desert and the “super potato” was planted and sealed inside the CubeSat, in the most inhospitable Mars like conditions. Then, together with over 100 million other people around the world, we watched the live feed from cameras inside the CubeSat and waited to see if the new variety would grow. Twenty-four hours a day, people watched on our dedicated portal: http://potatoes.space/mars/.