It focused on a food plan for a 15-person astronaut crew for 500 Martian sols (a sol is roughly 24 hours and 37 minutes, totaling about 513 Earth days).

Ukeje’s modular food ecosystem, envisions a system that cooks fresh meals daily and has provisions to work through shortages of power, water, equipment or crew time.

“We’re thrilled to keep advancing the future of space food systems with this challenge,” said Jennifer Edmunson, program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The future of human space exploration will rely on innovative food systems, and it is amazing how much ingenuity this challenge has helped us identify from participants near and far.”