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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Deep Space Food Challenge

Mycelium Protein & Fresh Produce Production System Wins Canadian Edition of Deep Space Food Challenge

Today, the Canadian edition of the Deep Space Food Challenge announced the grand prize winner for its years-long competition to discover new solutions to feed astronauts on long-term space missions.

The winner is a food production system co-developed by Canadian companies Ecoation and Maia Farms. The system, called CANGrow, grows different types of fresh foods, including strawberries and cherry tomatoes, and also creates mycelium-derived protein using Maia Farms’ biomass fermentation technology. According to the Canadian Space Agency, the CANGrow creators will receive $380,000 in prize money.

Over the last three years, a number of semifinalists and finalists in the Canadian edition of the Deep Space Food Challenge presented system concepts for generating protein using algae, insects, or mycelium (fungal) as the primary source. One of the reasons I suspect CANGrow won it all is its ability to produce both plant-based proteins via biomass fermentation AND fresh produce. Astronauts will need a full range of nutrients while up in space for years at a time, and a system that produces both veggies and protein is a pretty compelling concept.

The CANGrow system has five grow chambers, four of which are dedicated to growing plants using LED lighting for photosynthesis and a UV-treated hydroponic system for efficient watering. The fifth chamber is a small bioreactor that produces mycelium-derived protein using a biomass fermentation process developed by Maia Farms.

If having two Canadian startups co-develop the CANGrow system wasn’t Canadian enough, according to Ecoation and Maia Farms, the system also incorporates accelerated composting technology from Lomi, a smart composting system developed by British Columbia-based startup Pela.

If you’re wondering who the winner is for the NASA/US edition of the Deep Space Food Challenge, you’ll have to wait a bit. According to the timeline from NASA and the Deep Space Food Challenge, the winners of the grand prize for the NASA challenge still have yet to undergo simulation training in NASA’s Starlab Ground Lab, which will take place this summer. After the systems are tested via simulated flight testing, the winner will be announced in August of this year.

Finalists for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge Include Astronaut Oven & Air Protein Technology

Last week, NASA announced the finalists for the final phase of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition designed to help explore and better understand how these agencies can feed humans in space. The US Space Agency awarded $750,000 in prizes in the second phase of its Deep Space Food Challenge, and the winning teams will compete in the final phase of the challenge and $1.5 million in prize money.

The kickoff of the third phase is the culmination of almost two years of competition that saw hundreds of applicants get whittled down to 28 competing in the first round to eleven finalists for phase 2, and as of last week, eight companies competing in phase 3.

The following five US teams are among the eight finalists 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.

And NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) jointly announced three international companies as Phase 2 winners that can compete 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.

A few thoughts on the finalists:

Two companies building gas fermentation platforms – Air Company and Solar Foods – made the final phase. In a way, the participation of these startups brings the technology full circle since the idea of making food out of thin air was first explored by NASA in the 1960s when it was searching for ways to feed astronauts on long-range space flights.

SATED is the only one of five US finalists not building a food production system but has invented a deep-space cooking appliance! I guess NASA realized that their astronauts would need more than just chocolate chip cookies baked during space travel.

Some of the most exotic concepts from the early phases – including cultivated meat bioreactors, bread-making machines, and insect protein cultivators – didn’t make the final round, which isn’t all that surprising. Instead, NASA is probably focusing on those technologies that seem the most viable and have the best shot at producing food in extremely harsh environments.

Make Alcohol From an Astronaut’s Breath? Yep. Here Are the Finalists For Phase 2 of the Deep Space Food Challenge

This week, NASA’s ability to keep astronauts fat and happy on a mission to Mars took another giant leap forward for mankind.

That’s because the U.S. space agency, in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), announced the 11 finalists for Phase 2 of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition designed to help explore and better understand how these agencies can feed humans in space.

The second phase of the competition kicked off in January 2022, and both new teams and previous Phase 1 winners were challenged to build small-scale prototypes of their ideas. Dozens of teams developed prototypes to use minimal resources, creating little waste, and producing safe, healthy, and tasty foods for astronauts.

The judging panel, which featured experts from academia, industry, and government, evaluated submissions on various criteria such as design innovation, scientific and technical approach, and the feasibility of their design.

The following U.S. companies were selected as finalists:

  • InFynity (Chicago, Illinois) is utilizing 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-term 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.

In addition to these U.S. companies, the NASA and the CSA 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 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.

The top 5 U.S. companies will be recognized as Phase 2 challenge winners, each awarded $150,000. In addition, 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.

Looking at the finalists, it’s clear the big winner was…fungi. Six of the final eight finalists have built systems that create fungi in some form or another. But maybe the most intriguing system chosen by NASA is from Brooklyn’s Air Company, which has technology that can convert an astronaut’s breath into alcohol, which is then used as feed media for an edible yeast that produces proteins, fats, and carbs. As it turns out, the company’s technology can also produce vodka, which I’m thinking might just come in handy during a long-term space flight.

NASA Offers $1 Million to Innovators to Create Food Systems For Deep Space

This week, NASA announced $1 million in total prize money for innovations as part of Phase 2 of its Deep Space Food Challenge. The contest, which announced Phase 1 winners last October, is a NASA Centennial challenge that aims to foster innovation around sustainable food production technologies or systems that require minimal resources and produce minimal waste.

The goal, according to NASA, is to develop food systems that can feed a team of four astronauts on a long-haul space mission of up to three years. They also make it clear they hope this challenge will result in food innovation that can help feed more people on earth.

“Feeding astronauts over long periods within the constraints of space travel will require innovative solutions,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “Pushing the boundaries of food technology will keep future explorers healthy and could even help feed people here at home.”

While judges in Phase 1 focused on how innovative the proposed systems were, contestants didn’t actually have to build anything. That all changes in Phase 2. According to the announcement, Phase 2 entrants are expected to take their ideas to the next step and build working prototypes. From the announcement: “…the competition calls on teams to design, build, and demonstrate prototypes of food production technologies that provide tangible nutritional products – or food.”

For Phase 1, NASA announced 28 winners who had developed ideas for making food using technologies ranging from 3D printing and cell-cultured meat production to vertical farming. One of the winners – Space Cow – even developed a system concept that converts CO2 and waste streams straight into food, with the help of food-grade micro-organisms and 3D printing.

All of the winners from Phase 1 automatically meet the submission requirements for Phase 2 and have been invited to participate. In addition, the challenge is also opening the door to new entrants for Phase 2, for which NASA is taking registrations for entrance until February 28th. The Canadian Space Agency is running a parallel contest as part of the Deep Space Food Challenge (each space agency is running a separate contest with separate prize pools).

NASA’s Phase 2 prize purse is divided in the following ways: $20k each will be awarded to the 10 top scoring teams, and $150 thousand will be awarded to the top 5 scoring teams, each of whom will be invited to compete in Phase 3.

While NASA hasn’t detailed what Phase 3 will entail, the Canadian Space Agency has described their Phase 3 as “Full System Demonstration” where finalists “will grow and scale up their solutions in Canada over a 12 to 18-month period starting in Fall 2022.” I assume – if and when NASA launches Phase 3 – their final leg will focus on a similar system scale up as its primary criteria.

Fruit Cells, Space Bread, and Cultured Meat Cartridges: Deep Space Food Challenge Announces Phase 1 Winners

On planet Earth, we face the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing population that is set to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050. In space, we face the challenge of feeding astronauts traveling through the galaxy for an extended period of time. Novel and innovative food technology could offer viable solutions in both realms.

For the first time ever, NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) have come together this year to host the Deep Space Food Challenge. Companies competing in the challenge must be able to offer a solution to feeding at least four astronauts on a three-year space mission. The solutions should be able to achieve the greatest amount of food output (that is palatable and nutritious) with minimal input and waste. In addition to being used in space, the solution must also improve food accessibility on Earth.

This week, the winners of Phase 1 were announced:

MANUFACTURED FOODS

  • Astra Gastronomy
  • Beehex
  • BigRedBites
  • Bistromathic
  • Cosmic Eats
  • SIRONA NOMs
  • Space Bread
  • µBites
  • ALSEC Alimentos Secos SAS
  • Electric Cow
  • Solar Foods

BIO CULTURE FOODS

  • Deep Space Entomoculture
  • Hefvin
  • Mission: Space Food
  • KEETA
  • Natufia x Edama

PLANT GROWTH

  • Far Out Foods
  • Interstellar Lab
  • Kernel Deltech
  • Nolux
  • Project MIDGE
  • RADICLE-X
  • Space Lab Cafe
  • AMBAR
  • Enigma of the Cosmos
  • JPWORKS SRL
  • LTCOP
  • Team π

Many companies that were selected as Phase 1 winners use technologies that have steadily gained popularity in the food tech space, like 3D printing, using bioreactors for cultured protein, and vertical farming. In-demand “future food” ingredients like fungi, microbes, cultured cells/meat, and insects were also popular amongst competitors.

Out of the 28 winners, here are some of our favorites:

Beehex (Columbus, Ohio) – Some of you may remember Beehex for their work on a 3D pizza printer for NASA. For this competition, Beehex is proposing a UFF (Universal Food Fabricator) which can dehydrate plants and cultured meats into powder form foods, store them into hermetically sealed cartridges for 5+ years, and 3D print with the stored food in cartridges when needed.

Deep Space Entomoculture (Somerville, Massachusetts) – In this company’s proposed food system, dry-preserved insect cells will be brought up into space. Using a suspension bioreactor, the insect cells, along with other ingredients, will be reactivated and used to create traditional meat-like analogs.

Space Bread (Hawthorne, Florida) – As the name aptly suggests, this company’s tech allows for crew members to create bread in space. This food system includes a multifuntional plastic bag that is used to store and combine ingredients, and then bake a roll.

Mission Space Food: This company is making a system that will cultivate meat in space using pluripotent stem cells using cell cryopreservation and bioreactor. The creators say the system can can grow beef as well as be adapted to grow other meats such as pork or lamb.

AMBAR – (Bucaramanga, Colombia) – Operating as a small-scale ecosystem, AMBAR’s growing cabinet contains different compartments for various plants. Within this system, both terrestrial and aquatic are able to be grown for food.

Hefvin (Bethesda, Maryland) – This company produces berries by growing fruit cells in a nutrient rich media. Spherification (the culinary process used to shape liquid into squishy spheres) is used to encase different cells to create a full berry, complete with skin and pulp.

Space Cow: (Germany) – this company makes a system converts CO2 and waste streams straight into food, with the help of a food grade micro-organisms and 3D printing.

Each U.S. winner of Phase 1 has been awarded $25,000 to continue working on their solution and is invited to continue on to the Phase 2 competition.

The Food Tech Show: The Future of Space Food

Feeding humans hurtling through space isn’t easy.

While today’s astronauts get to eat high quality cuisine made on earth by some of the world’s best cooks, space travel in the future will require entirely new approaches that can grow enough food in space to produce sufficient calories and nutrients for astronaut crews on multiyear interplanetary missions.

Which is why there’s growing interest from the space agencies from the U.S., Canada, Japan and other countries to find new and novel food system concepts that can keep astronauts and eventually even permanent space inhabitants fed.

To discuss the current and future state of space food, I recently got together with Anjan Contractor, the CEO of BeeHex, a company who created a 3D pizza printer for NASA. Also joining us was Dane Gobel, the operations administrator for the Deep Space Food Challenge, a new initiative by NASA and the Canadian space agency to spur innovation in developing new food systems for long-term space travel.

Some of the things we discuss on the podcast:

  • The challenges of creating food systems for space
  • How astronauts need a variety of food types and nutrients (including fresh food) to maintain long term physiological and psychological health
  • How new technologies like cultivated meat and proteins will play a pivotal role in space food in the future
  • The requirements and goals of the Deep Space Food Challenge

And much more!

You can listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen by clicking the player below.