University of Guelph’s entry in research competition hopes to pass deep space taste test

The final judging in the Deep Space Food Challenge happened on Feb 7. The winner of the $380,000 first prize will be announced in March.

Canada GOOSE are waiting with bated breath to see if their entry will pass the muster.

The team from the University of Guelph is one of the final four institutions competing in the Canadian Space Agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge.

Final judging took place on Feb. 7 inside the campus’ Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility.

“We got a dozen crops going from basic micro crops to root crops like turnips, fruit crops like tomatoes, beans, and few others,” said Mike Dixon, professor emeritus and director of the facility. “We cover the waterfront of nutritional requirement for explorers.”

The Deep Space Food Challenge was launched in partnership with Impact Canada in 2021. The goal is to develop new technologies to produce food for both future space missions, and harsh or remote environments on earth.

Canada GOOSE (which stands for Growth Options for Outer Space Environments) is competing against two universities in Montreal (McGill and Concordia) and Ecoation Innovative Solutions Inc. from Kingsville, Ont. Each entrant received $100,000 for being in the final four.

Simulating the production of food like fruits and vegetables in an outer space environment seems like a difficult task, but Dixon said they were able to use simple, basic methods that are no different than what people use on earth.

“Controlling the light quality and quantity, carbon dioxide, water, nutrients, temperature and humidity… that’s farming,” he said. “We manage those environment variables very precisely.”