Do fungi survive under actual space conditions? Searching for evidence in favour of lithopanspermia

Abstract

Cryptoendolithic communities and black meristematic fungi from the Antarctic desert have been shown to survive under simulated space and Martian conditions in ground‐based Experiment Verification Tests. An experiment was set to test their resistance under actual space and simulated Martian conditions on the International Space Station in the framework of the EXPOSE‐EuTEF Consortium, LIFE‐ESA project.