The winners
The competition began in 2021 and to date has included more than 300 teams from 32 countries. The effort is also split between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Winners were selected during the first two phases of the competition and the final one, Phase 3, began in September 2023.
Four American teams received $50,000 each and were invited to participate in the third and final phase of the competition, where they had to build a scale model of their food production system and demonstrate how it works. Phase 3 was hosted by the Methuselah Foundation and Ohio State University; for two months, teams tested and demonstrated their technology on the university’s campus in Columbus, Ohio. During this time, key milestones had to be met, including palatability, safety, sensory testing, and harvest quantities. Each team had a group of Ohio State University students known as “Simunauts” who led the process during the eight-week period and gathered information to present to a panel of judges.
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The grand prize of $750,000 went to Interstellar Lab in Merritt Island, Florida. Barbara Belvisi and her team created a small company that combines artificial intelligence, advanced equipment and life sciences to create plant-based ingredients that can be used both in space and on Earth. Thanks to its growing system, the food production facility is self-sustaining, sourcing microgreens, vegetables and even the insects needed to produce micronutrients.
Nolux, a team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside, took second place and received $250,000 for developing an artificial photosynthesis system that can produce plant and fungi-based foods without biological photosynthesis. The second runner-up, who also took home $250,000, was Jim Sears, the sole inventor of the SATED (Standing for Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient & Delicious) device. Sears was able to produce several types of customizable foods, including peach pie and pizza. Each product is fire-safe and contains a combination of locally grown ingredients and those with longer shelf lives.
“Congratulations to the winners and all the finalist teams for their years of work on innovative solutions for the Deep Space Food Challenge,” Amy Kaminski, program manager for NASA Prizes, Challenges and Crowdsourcing at NASA Headquarters in Washington, also said in the statement. “These food production technologies could change the future of food availability on other worlds and our home planet.”
