GAIA Project Wins Prestigious NASA/CSA Award

NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) in partnership with the Methuselah Foundation recently ran an international competition the “Deep Space Food Challenge to help bring innovative food production systems to provide nutritious and palatable meals for future astronauts on deep space missions.

Private and government research organisations, educational platforms, businesses and organisations applied for this competition to showcase their existing products and/or designs for solutions specifically to meet the needs of the Deep Space Food Challenge.  NASA and CSA shortlisted these innovative applicants down to 10 international and 28 from USA & Canada.

GAIA Project Australia, who entered the competition under the name of “Enigma of the Cosmos”, was privileged to take out the first prize award for international innovation award and granted $25,000 US in prize money.

After completing four space flight missions with one of them requiring a 1-year continuous placement on the International Space Station (ISS), no one else would know how important it is to have fresh, nutritious and tasty food than famous retired astronaut Scott Kell who selected and presented the award see the video here.  (skip to 7:40).  

Scott was very impressed with the innovative technology used, having said “Out of the 10 winning international teams, we chose a team who designed a dynamic plant growth system that fully adapts itself to the lifecycle of the plants it produces. This results in an additional 40% yield compared to systems of comparable volume. If you like salad, you’re going to love this team”

About the “Rejig Channels for Space”

GAIA Project Australia has designed an innovative variant of their Rejig system specifically for use on spacecraft for long haul journeys or permanent bases set up on the Moon or Mars.  As future space missions will be far from earth, GAIA Project had to come up with a solution that would meet a number of key criteria for its success.  

Here are the “Challenge Goals” as well as the solution that GAIA is able to achieve:

  1. Help fill food gaps for a three-year round-trip mission with no resupply 

The Rejig Channels for Space is a fully closed vertical farming solution.  For a three-year space mission, the specifications for our systems are below,: 

  • 2 cubic metres for the entire system
  • Production capabilities of over 600-750g of leafy greens + micro green combination daily.
  • Automation to minimise only 3hrs of labour requirement weekly for system operation, maintenance, harvesting and planting. 
  • Ability to pre-plan meals month ahead.
  • Average crop production of 60 plants per square meter to produce high density leafy green with an allocated 2 square metres of growing space in the 2 cubic metre grow module.
  • With input grow medium of 10kg for the entire 3 year journey with a further second use of these medium for mycelium propagation and cultivation.

These quantities are based on a 3-year mission, however, you could expand this further by adding an extra 33% on the consumable quantities per extra year you wish. The physical mechanics of the structure is designed to last 20 years on earth, which would be even longer in space with fewer factors that cause degradation such as gravity.

  1. Feed a crew of four (4) astronauts

From the above configuration, you would be able to feed 4 astronauts with a balanced healthy diet which would equate to 600 to 800g of leafy greens and microgreens for daily consumption.

  1. Improve the accessibility of food on Earth, in particular, via production directly in urban centres and in remote and harsh environments

The Rejig Chanel system for space is a modified version of our Rejig Chanel System. Our current product is applicable in all areas within the  CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture) sector, ranging from greenhouses to vertical farming to hobby growers.  We have plans to implement our Rejig Chanel modular grow system System on urban rooftops of apartment complexes to supply the residents with a local healthy supply of leafy greens. 

With our container system, we are able to implement our solution to any remote or harsh environment which is ideal as it requires less water and energy.

  1. Achieve the greatest amount of food output with minimal inputs and minimal waste

The Rejig Chanel system for space produces 40% higher output per metre square than any of its competitors. This equates to a minimum of +50kg per metre square of leafy greens produced with much lower energy requirements for lighting.  As per above it only requires small amounts of energy, water, fertiliser, seeds and growing pods so is very easy to resupply after the 3 year period.

  1. Create a variety of palatable, nutritious, and safe foods that requires little processing time for crew members

As we all know, leafy greens are an important part of a healthy diet. They’re packed with vitamins, minerals and fibre but low in calories. Eating a diet rich in leafy greens can offer numerous health benefits including reduced risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and mental decline. 

Our Bi-directional modular cultivation system will streamline planting and harvesting to a single point, minimising labour requirements in planting/ harvesting by over 50%, leaving the astronauts to spend their time on more important tasks. 

What’s next

After winning phase one of the Deep Space Food Challenge, GAIA Project Australia is now set on completing phase two which is to build the prototype as per our designs.

This prototype project aims to be completed by August 2022, stay tuned with updates on our website, Facebook, linkedin, Twitter & Instagram.

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