Plants React to Spaceflight Within Minutes: 1,200+ Genes Shift on a Blue Origin Flight

How fast does a plant notice it has left Earth? Almost immediately, according to a University of Florida study announced on October 15, 2026 and published in npj Microgravity.

An experiment strapped to a flight suit

UF space biologist Rob Ferl flew on Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-26 mission on August 29, 2024. He carried dozens of Arabidopsis plants (thale cress, the lab rat of plant biology) in Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes attached to his suit, and activated them at four points:

• before launch
• on reaching microgravity
• at the end of weightlessness, as descent began
• after landing

On the ground, colleague Jordan Callaham activated identical control tubes at the same moments, so each flight sample had a matching Earth twin.

What changed

The team found more than 1,200 genes whose activity shifted during the flight. Leaves and roots responded differently, and the response changed from one phase to the next. Many of these genes are linked to stress and changing conditions. “The plants’ responses changed as the flight progressed,” says co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, as reported by Phys.org. In other words, adapting to space is a step-by-step process, not a single switch.

Rocks take

Beyond space farming, this is a nice reminder that plants react to stress in minutes, not days, whether it’s gravity, a cold draft or a repotting. The study also shows a scientist can run their own experiment in space, which could make plant research on future orbital greenhouses much faster.