posted 02-03-2021 03:39 PM               

Deep Space Food Challenge

As NASA develops concepts for longer crewed missions to Mars and beyond, the agency will need innovative and sustainable food systems that check all the boxes.

The Deep Space Food Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge, seeks ideas for novel food production technologies or systems that require minimal resources and produce minimal waste, while providing safe, nutritious, and tasty food for long-duration human exploration missions. Solutions from this challenge could enable new avenues for food production around the world, especially in extreme environments, resource-scarce regions, and in new places like urban areas and in locations where disasters disrupt critical infrastructure.

• Open Date: January 12, 2021
  
• Close Date: July 30, 2021
  
• Prize Purse: Up to $500K for Phase 1 for U.S. citizens
  
• Frequency: Potential for two phases

posted 10-20-2021 10:46 AM               

NASA Announces Winners of Deep Space Food Challenge

Variety, nutrition, and taste are some considerations when developing food for astronauts. For NASA's Deep Space Food Challenge, students, chefs, small businesses, and others whipped up novel food technology designs to bring new solutions to the table.

NASA has selected 18 U.S. teams to receive a total of $450,000 for ideas that could feed astronauts on future missions. Each team will receive $25,000. Additionally, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) jointly recognized 10 international submissions.

NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website will air a show on the Deep Space Food Challenge at 11 a.m. EST Nov. 9 with details about the competition, winning solutions, and what could be next for the teams.

Special guests during the show will include celebrity chef Martha Stewart and retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who will announce the winners of two awards honoring international teams that demonstrated exceptional innovation. Other participants will include retired CSA astronaut Chris Hadfield and celebrity chef Lynn Crawford.

"NASA is excited to engage the public in developing technologies that could fuel our deep space explorers," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Our approach to deep space human exploration is strengthened by new technological advances and diverse community input. This challenge helps us push the boundaries of exploration capabilities in ways we may not recognize on our own."

NASA, in coordination with CSA, opened the Deep Space Food Challenge in January. The competition asked innovators to design food production technologies or systems that met specific requirements: They would need to use minimal resources and produce minimal waste. The meals they produced would have to be safe, nutritious, and delicious for long-duration human exploration missions.

For the U.S. teams, NASA's judges grouped submissions based on the food they envisioned producing. Among the designs were systems that used ingredients to create ready-to-eat foods such as bread, as well as dehydrated powders that could be processed into more complex food products. Others involved cultivated plants and fungi or engineered or cultured food such as cultured meat cells.

Details about the winning submissions and teams can be found on the challenge website.

"These types of food systems could offer benefits on our home planet," said Robyn Gatens, director of the International Space Station Program at NASA and challenge judge. "Solutions from this challenge could enable new avenues for worldwide food production in resource-scarce regions and locations where disasters disrupt critical infrastructure."

The winning U.S. teams, in alphabetical order, are:

• Astra Gastronomy of San Francisco, California
  
• BeeHex of Columbus, Ohio
  
• BigRedBites of Ithaca, New York
  
• Biostromathic of Austin, Texas
  
• Cosmic Eats of Cary, North Carolina
  
• Deep Space Entomoculture of Somerville, Massachusetts
  
• Far Out Foods of St. Paul, Minnesota
  
• Hefvin of Bethesda, Maryland
  
• Interstellar Lab of Los Angeles
  
• Kemel Deltech USA of Cape Canaveral, Florida
  
• Mission: Space Food of Mountain View, California
  
• Nolux of Riverside, California
  
• Project MIDGE of La Crescenta-Montrose, California
  
• RADICLE-X of Brooklyn, New York
  
• SIRONA NOMs of Golden, Colorado
  
• Space Bread of Hawthorne, Florida
  
• Space Lab Café of Boulder, Colorado
  
• µBites of Carbondale, Illinois

CSA ran a parallel competition with a separate application, judging process, and prize for participating Canadian teams. The agency will announce its winners at a later date.

Teams from outside the U.S. and Canada qualified for recognition but were not eligible for monetary prizes. The 10 international submissions NASA and CSA recognized are:

• ALSEC Alimentos Secos SAS of Antioquia, Colombia
  
• Ambar of Bucaramanga, Colombia
  
• Electric Cow of Germany
  
• Enigma of the Cosmos of Écully, France and Brunswick, Australia
  
• JPWORKS SRL of Milan, Italy
  
• KEETA of Bangkok, Thailand
  
• LTCOP of Piracicaba, Brazil
  
• Natufia X Edama of Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
  
• Solar Foods of Lappeenranta, Finland
  
• π of Ghaziabad, India

The Deep Space Food Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge. Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington and are managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Subject matter experts at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida support the competition. NASA, in partnership with the Methuselah Foundation, manages the U.S. and international Deep Space Food Challenge competition.

posted 11-15-2021 06:15 PM               

Martha Stewart helps NASA pick Deep Space Food Challenge winners

From a method for turning microalgae into crunchy bite-sized snacks to a space-based bread maker, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have named the winners of the first Deep Space Food Challenge, an international contest that sought novel food technologies for future astronaut missions, as well as for use in resource-scarce regions on Earth.

Celebrity chefs Martha Stewart and Lynn Crawford joined former astronauts Scott Kelly and Chris Hadfield in making the announcements in a video aired by NASA on its television channel on Monday (Nov. 15).

posted 02-01-2023 04:36 PM               

NASA Announces Finalists in Challenge to Design Future Astronaut Food

NASA has selected 11 finalists in Phase 2 of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a public competition to extend the limits of humans in space – through food.

A first-of-its-kind coordinated effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Deep Space Food Challenge aims to kickstart future food systems for pioneering missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The multiphase technology competition invites problem-solvers around the world to design, build, and test new ways to sustain astronauts in space for months or even years at a time.

"As we prepare for long-duration human spaceflight, food is essential not only for nutrition, but also familiarity and comfort on long voyages and in isolated environments," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. "Drawing on the creativity of innovators is allowing us to tackle this important yet complex challenge in new and interesting ways."

The second phase of the competition opened in January 2022 and challenges both new teams and previous Phase 1 winners to build small-scale prototypes of their ideas. Dozens of teams developed innovative technologies to use minimal resources, create little waste, and produce safe, healthy, and appetizing foods for astronauts.

Among the proposed solutions are systems that create food using carbon dioxide and fungal proteins, as well as closed-looped systems designed to grow and sustain greens and vegetables. A panel of expert judges from across academia, industry, and government evaluated teams' submissions on criteria such as design innovation, scientific and technical approach, as well as the feasibility of their design. Eleven selected teams qualified to move on to the final round of Phase 2 judging.

The following U.S. finalists will each receive $20,000:

• InFynity (Chicago, Illinois) is utilizing a fungi protein to prepare nutritious and delicious foods.
  
• Nolux (Riverside, California) is producing plant- and fungal-based food using artificial photosynthesis.
  
• Mu Mycology (Hillboro, Oregon) uses a closed-loop mushroom cultivation system allowing for scalable growth of various edible mushrooms.
  
• Kernel Deltech USA (Cape Canaveral, Florida) produces inactivated fungal biomass using a continuous cultivation technique.
  
• Interstellar Lab (Merritt Island, Florida) produces fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms, and insects to provide micronutrients for long-tern space missions.
  
• Far Out Foods (St. Paul, Minnesota) developed a nearly closed-loop food production system called the Exo-Garden that is capable of producing a variety of mushrooms and hydroponic vegetables.
  
• SATED (Boulder, Colorado), or Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient, & Delicious, cooks a variety of well-known foods from long-shelf-life ingredients.
  
• Air Company (Brooklyn, New York) developed a system that captures carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts, combined with hydrogen made with water electrolysis, to produce alcohol that is then fed to an edible yeast to make proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.

Additionally, NASA and CSA jointly recognized three international finalist teams from outside the U.S. and Canada:

• Enigma of the Cosmos (Melbourne, Australia) created a food production system with an adaptive growing platform that could increase the efficiency by at least 40%.
  
• Solar Foods (Lappeenranta, Finland) uses gas fermentation to produce single-cell proteins.
  
• Mycorena (Gothenburg, Sweden) developed a circular production system utilizing a mix of microalgae and fungi, resulting in a microprotein using minimal resources while generating minimal waste.

"In addition to meeting needs for long-term deep space missions, the judges also considered the potential use of the technology here on Earth, where food insecurity is a significant problem in harsh environments," said Denise Morris, the Prizes Challenges, cand Crowdsourcing program's acting program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

U.S. teams were asked to envision the future and adaptability of their technologies by developing a plan to scale for power, mass, and volume in different environments; increase the variety to include more or different food outputs; and extend the stability of the ingredients and food outputs of their systems. Team Hefvin (Bethesda, Maryland) was recognized for these plans and received a $10,000 bonus prize for their work growing fruit cells in nutrient-rich media, producing berries rich in flavor, color, and aroma.

As a next step, judges will visit each of the Phase 2 finalists at their facilities to evaluate their technologies and the food outputs as well as participating in a demonstration to evaluate the acceptability and ease of the food production process. Following these on-site demonstrations, up to five top scoring U.S. teams will be recognized as Phase 2 challenge winners, each awarded $150,000. Up to three top scoring international teams will be recognized as Phase 2 challenge winners. The winners of Phase 2 are scheduled to be announced in April 2023.

The Deep Space Food Challenge is a coordinated effort between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. Subject matter experts at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida support the competition.

posted 05-23-2023 05:01 PM               

NASA Selects Winners, Announces Final Phase of Space Food Challenge

NASA has announced eight winning teams and awarded $750,000 in prizes in the second phase of the agency's Deep Space Food Challenge. The winning teams will move on to compete in the third and final phase of the challenge.

As NASA prepares to send astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before, the agency needs food systems that can fortify future crews in deep space for years at a time. The Deep Space Food Challenge calls on solvers from around the world to create technologies to help feed astronauts on future long-term space missions.

"These creative winning solutions come from teams made up of business, universities, and individual solvers, showcasing how NASA can benefit from everyone's expertise to solve crucial challenges," said Amy Kaminski, program executive for Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We're excited to announce Phase 3 of the challenge to see where these teams can take their technologies next."

Phase 2 tasked dozens of teams with building and demonstrating small-scale prototypes of technologies that use minimal resources and create little waste while producing safe, healthy, and appetizing foods for astronauts. A panel of judges selected eight winners to build and demonstrate full-scale food technologies over the next year in Phase 3.

The following U.S. teams will each receive $150,000 in prizes from NASA and advance to compete for up to $1.5 million in total prizes from NASA in Phase 3:

• Air Company of Brooklyn, New York, developed a system and processes for turning air, water, electricity, and yeast into food.

• Interstellar Lab of Merritt Island, Florida, created a modular bioregenerative system for producing fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms, and insects.

• Kernel Deltech USA of Cape Canaveral, Florida, developed a system for cultivating mushroom-based ingredients.

• Nolux of Riverside, California, created a solution that mimics the photosynthesis that happens in nature to produce plant- and mushroom-based ingredients.

• SATED (Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient, and Delicious) of Boulder, Colorado, developed a space cooking appliance that would allow astronauts to prepare a variety of meals from ingredients with long shelf lives.

NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) also jointly selected three international teams as Phase 2 winners. These three teams are invited to advance their technologies in Phase 3:

• Enigma of the Cosmos of Melbourne, Australia, created an adaptive growing system to increase the efficiency of plants' natural growth cycles.
  
  
• Mycorena of Gothenburg, Sweden, developed a system that uses a combination of microalgae and fungi to produce a microprotein.

• Solar Foods of Lappeenranta, Finland, created a system that uses gas fermentation to produce single-cell proteins.

"Astronauts will tell you that tasty and nutritious food is a critical part of any successful human space exploration mission," said Denise Morris, program manager of NASA Centennial Challenges at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "The possibilities presented in this challenge could help sustain our explorers on future missions, and even have the potential to help out right here on Earth in areas where food is scarce or hard to produce."

The competition is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and CSA. On April 27, CSA awarded prizes to the teams advancing to the final stage of the Canadian challenge, which runs in parallel with NASA's.

The Deep Space Food Challenge is one of NASA's Centennial Challenges, which are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within STMD. NASA Marshall manages Centennial Challenges. Subject matter experts at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida support the competition. NASA, in partnership with the Methuselah Foundation, manages the U.S. and international competitors.

posted 08-19-2024 04:54 PM               

NASA Awards $1.25 Million to Three Teams at Deep Space Food Finale

NASA has awarded a total of $1.25 million to three U.S. teams in the third and final round of the agency's Deep Space Food Challenge. The teams delivered novel food production technologies that could provide long-duration human space exploration missions with safe, nutritious, and tasty food.

The competitors' technologies address NASA's need for sustainable food systems for long-duration habitation in space, including future Artemis missions and eventual journeys to Mars. Advanced food systems also could benefit life on Earth and inspire food production in parts of the world that are prone to natural disasters, food insecurity, and extreme environments.

"The Deep Space Food Challenge could serve as the framework for providing astronauts with healthy and delicious food using sustainable mechanisms," said Angela Herblet, challenge manager for the Deep Space Food Challenge at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. "The challenge has brought together innovative and driven individuals from around the world who are passionate about creating new solutions that support our agency's future Moon to Mars missions."

Since the challenge's launch in 2021, more than 300 teams from 32 countries have participated by submitting innovative food system designs. The competition, conceived and managed by NASA Centennial Challenges at NASA Marshall, is a first-of-its-kind coordinated effort between NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), which ran its own challenge in parallel.

Four American teams competed in Phase 3, which began in September 2023. The Methuselah Foundation partnered with Ohio State University to facilitate the final phase of the challenge, which included a two-month testing and demonstration period held on the university's campus in Columbus, Ohio. Each U.S. team in Phase 3 was awarded $50,000 and took their technology to Columbus for testing.

Throughout this phase, the teams constructed full-scale food production systems that were required to pass developmental milestones like safety, sensory testing, palatability, and harvesting volumes. Each team worked with four "Simunauts," a crew of Ohio State students who managed the testing and demonstrations for Phase 3 over the eight-week period. The data gathered from testing was delivered to a judging panel to determine the winner.

The challenge concluded at the Deep Space Food Symposium, a two-day networking and learning summit at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center on Aug. 15 and 16. Throughout the event, attendees met the Phase 3 finalists, witnessed demonstrations of the food production technologies, and attended panels featuring experts from NASA, government, industry, and academia. The winners of the challenge were announced at an awards ceremony at the end of the symposium.

The U.S. winner and recipient of the $750,000 grand prize is Interstellar Lab of Merritt Island, Florida. Led by Barbara Belvisi, the small business combines several autonomous phytotrons and environment-controlled greenhouses to support a growth system involving a self-sustaining food production mechanism that generates fresh vegetables, microgreens, and insects necessary for micronutrients.

Two runners-up each earned $250,000 for their food systems' successes: Nolux of Riverside, California, and SATED of Boulder, Colorado.

Nolux, a university team led by Robert Jinkerson, constructed an artificial photosynthetic system that can create plant and fungal-based foods without the operation of biological photosynthesis.

Standing for Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient & Delicious, SATED is a one-man team of Jim Sears, who developed a variety of customizable food, from pizza to peach cobbler. The product is fire-safe and was developed by long-shelf-life and in-situ grown ingredients.

NASA also selected and recognized one international team as a Phase 3 winner: Solar Foods of Lappeenranta, Finland, developed a food production system through gas fermentation that relies on single-cell protein production.

In April 2024, CSA and Impact Canada awarded the grand prize winner of its parallel challenge to Ecoation, a Vancouver-based small business specializing in greenhouses.

"Congratulations to the winners and all the finalist teams for their many years dedicated to innovating solutions for the Deep Space Food Challenge," said Amy Kaminski, program executive for NASA's Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These food production technologies could change the future of food accessibility on other worlds and our home planet."

Also present at the symposium was celebrity chef and cookbook author Tyler Florence. After spending time with each finalist team and getting acquainted with their food systems, Florence selected one team to receive the "Tyler Florence Award for Culinary Innovation." Team SATED of Boulder, Colorado, received the honor for their system that impressed Florence due to its innovative approach to the challenge.

The Deep Space Food Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge, is a coordinated effort between NASA and CSA. Subject matter experts at Johnson Space Center in Houston and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, supported the competition. NASA's Centennial Challenges are part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate and managed at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Methuselah Foundation, in partnership with NASA, oversees the United States and international competitors.