PUPILS at St Michael’s School in Minehead are preparing to embark on a voyage of discovery by growing seeds that have been into space.

In September, two kilograms of rocket seeds were flown to the International Space Station (ISS) on Soyuz 44S where they spent several months in microgravity before returning to Earth in March.

The seeds were sent as part of Rocket Science, an educational project launched by the RHS Campaign for School Gardening and the UK Space Agency.

St Michael’s is one of up to 10,000 schools to receive a packet of 100 seeds from space, which they are growing alongside seeds that have not left Earth to measure the differences over seven weeks.

The pupils will not know which seed packet contains which seeds until all results have been collected by the RHS and analysed by professional biostatisticians.

The nationwide science experiment will enable the pupils to think more about how human life might be preserved on another planet, what astronauts need to survive long-term missions in space and the difficulties surrounding growing fresh food in challenging climates.