After designing an experiment to grow potatoes in space for the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program and winning a spot for their idea on a rocket to the International Space Station, Gabriella Melendez (right) and Toriana Cornwell had to wait more than five weeks to get the potatoes back. On Thursday, it was time to open the package from Cape Canaveral containing the spuds.

Toriana Cornwell (left) and Gabriella Melendez zero in on the tiny potatoes that traveled 249 miles up to the International Space Station and back.

Two sets of potatoes were stored in the same type of plastic tube. The spuds on top stayed on Earth.

The space potatoes are released from the tube they traveled in, while (on the right) the Earth-bound spuds look a little frazzled.

The potatoes that traveled into space look fresh.

Some of the control potatoes that stayed on Earth started to grow.

Gabriella Melendez compresses some of the growing material she mixed the day before the potatoes arrived back from space.

A comfortable growing spot for a well-traveled spud.

The students also planted the potatoes that stayed on Earth as controls for the experiment.

Toriana Cornwell holds one of the tiny potatoes that recently returned from space.

Gabriella Melendez, an eighth-grader at Hamlin Park School in Buffalo, measures the depth at which she is planting her “space potatoes.”

Toriana Cornwell (left) and Gabriella Melendez work with their adviser, Andrew Franz, a teacher at Hamlin Park School, to plant potatoes that recently returned from a five-week stay on the International Space Station. The girls will compare the plants with others that did not go into space.