In Texas, the Advanced Food Technology team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center are solving Orion’s deep space nutrition challenges one meal at a time – currently, a calorically-dense breakfast bar that provides the crew the energy they need and the storage and weight economy that Orion needs. This team has thought beyond the more than 200 choices for the International Space Station because the Orion spacecraft will not be re-supplied like the ISS, instead needing to take everything onboard.
On Orion, the goal is to have a number of food bars to select from in a variety of flavors like orange cranberry or barbeque nut for their first meal of the day, reducing the amount of storage that meal will require. For lunch and dinner, Orion astronauts will be able to select from items similar to ISS food choices and will have a food warmer to help them prepare their meals.