Media, Public Invited to Meet Solvers in NASA Space Food Challenge

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May 12, 2023, 17:43 ET

WASHINGTON, May 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA will announce the second phase winners of its Deep Space Food Challenge, a global competition to help develop innovative food systems for future spacefarers on long-term exploration missions, on Friday, May 19.

Teams will showcase their ideas during the NYCxDESIGN Festival in New York, a citywide celebration of design. Media and the public are invited to join the teams to learn more about their technologies during multiple events.

Crew members aboard the International Space Station unpack newly delivered fresh fruit and other goodies in October 2019. From left are NASA flight engineers Jessica Meir, Andrew Morgan, and Christina Koch with ESA Commander Luca Parmitano. Credits: NASA

Friday, May 19
NASA will reveal the winning Phase 2 teams. The awards event will stream live online beginning at 12 p.m. EDT from the Smart Design studio, Building 127, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Media are invited to attend the awards event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. NASA speakers available for interviews in-person and virtually are:

Ralph Fritsche, senior project manager for space crop production at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Angela Herblet, project manager for the Deep Space Food Challenge at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama
Denise Morris, program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA Marshall

Reporters interested in covering the event in person must RSVP by 10 a.m., Thursday, May 18, to Molly Porter at [email protected] This event is not open to the public for in-person attendance.

Saturday, May 20
Teams taking part in the challenge will showcase some of their food production technologies beginning at 12 p.m. The event is free and open to the public through 4 p.m. Members of the media and public interested in attending must reserve a spot.

From 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., NASA speakers will take part in a panel discussion hosted by Smart Design and focused on design, innovation, and the future of food. Space is limited, and registration is available online until May 16.

Members of the media may also register for both events by emailing Molly Porter at [email protected].

More About NASA's Challenge
The Deep Space Food Challenge calls solvers around the world to invent new ways of producing food for future astronauts traveling farther from Earth than ever before. Since January 2021, teams have been designing and building new food tech solutions that would help keep astronauts safe, healthy, and productive for missions lasting years at a time.

The competition is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). 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 not-for-profit Methuselah Foundation administers the competition for U.S. and international teams through a Space Act Agreement with NASA. The Deep Space Food Challenge is part of NASA's Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate.

For more information on the challenge, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/spacefoodchallenge

SOURCE NASA