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Completed TRL 4 (started at 3, targeting 4)
Food and nutrition are critical to health and performance and therefore the success of human space exploration. However, the shelf-stable food system currently in use on the International Space Station (ISS) is not sustainable as missions become longer and further from Earth, even with modification for mass and water efficiencies. Bioregenerative foods as part of the astronaut diet are expected to provide whole food nutrition, improve menu variety, and positively impact behavioral health. Significant advances in both knowledge and technology are still needed to inform productivity, nutrition, acceptability, safety, reliability, and operations of bioregenerative food systems. Sierra Space's Hydroponic/Aeroponic Nutrient Delivery in Volumetrically Efficient Garden (HANDIVEG) is designed to enable continuous crop production in microgravity. HANDIVEG tests volume optimization concepts and uses soilless water and nutrient delivery technologies similar to eXposed Root On-Orbit Test System (XROOTS) https://techport.nasa.gov/projects/94182. HANDIVEG is designed to grow multiple crop cycles. The Phase B grant advanced the technology and design to demonstrate functionality on the ground with a follow-on contract planned to test the flight design in Ohalo III. Ohalo III is a prototype crop production system that will validate water/nutrient delivery and volume optimization, of candidate root module systems like HANDIVEG and advance knowledge on crop production operations which will inform design decisions for a future crop production system intended to be deployed on Deep Space Transit missions.
Ohalo III will serve as a platform to develop advanced water delivery and volume optimization like Sierra Space's HANDIVEG that will enable future crop production operations on long duration exploration missions. Sierra Space's Phase B grant advances the design of HANDIVEG and once the design is finalized, flight hardware delivered to ISS, and following the evaluation of HANDIVEG in Ohalo III, it may prove to be the basis of the first operational crop production system in space. The integrated system will provide valuable information on the productivity, reliability, and operations associated with growing crops as a component of the exploration food system. In this capacity, Ohalo III will serve as a prototype for the crop production system that is eventually deployed on the Mars Transit Vehicle and will also inform early lunar and Mars surface crop production systems.
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