Due to the late flight opportunity for the BOTANY FACILITY on the second EURECA mission a sized down facility, referred to as the MINI BOTANY FACILITY (MBF), to be flown in a re-entering capsule, for example the Russian BIOKOSMOS, is currently being studied.
As a minimum, the following subsystems are baselined for the MBF: Experiment container/-cuvette, visualization, illumination, life support, thermal control, waste control and fluid supply.
The paper addresses firstly the impact of the new boundary conditions (e.g. operation in pressure controlled environment, much shorter mission duration) on the selection of viable concepts for the Life Support Subsystem (LSS).
Next a number of options for soil moisture control is discussed and analysed.
Finally, the pre-development of components and a miniaturized sensor for soil moisture is addresssed.