iss065e346115 (September 2, 2021) -- NASA astronaut and Expedition 65 Flight Engineer Megan McArthur poses with the crop of chile peppers being grown as part of the Plant Habitat-04 investigation inside the Advanced Plant Habitat (APH) aboard the International Space Station. This is the first time chile peppers are being grown aboard the orbiting laboratory, and are one of the most complex plant experiments on the station to date because of the long germination and growing times. The pepper seeds were activated on July 12. 2021 and will grow for about four months, during which time they will be harvested twice. Astronauts will sample some of the peppers and return the rest to Earth for scientific analysis.