ISS astronauts find tomato that disappeared 8 months ago, former suspect can now sleep peacefully.
The 2.5 cm (1 inch) wide Red Robin dwarf tomato was part of the last harvest for the Veg-05 experiment, which was overseen by American astronaut Frank Rubio, Space.com reports. After the harvest on March 29, 2023, each ISS astronaut received tomato samples, but Rubio’s share was lost.
For a long time, the astronaut was accused of eating a tomato, and it became an inside joke on the ISS.
“Our good friend Frank Rubio, who is now back home, has been accused for a long time of eating a tomato. But we can exonerate him. We found the tomato,” said NASA astronaut Jasmine Mogbeli during a live broadcast on Wednesday, December 6.
Due to problems with the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which were eventually resolved by the launch of a new Soyuz spacecraft, Rubio was forced to double his expected six-month stay on the ISS, and he stayed there for a year.
The ISS is bigger than a six-bedroom house, and in microgravity, things can easily float away to unexpected places. NASA’s procedure is usually to check the vents, but on a station that is crammed with 25-year-old equipment, it’s easy to lose track of individual items.
