Global Finalist Teams
Funding Secured
Competition Journey
2024 Final Demo
The Challenge
The NASA & Canadian Space Agency Deep Space Food Challenge posed a question that has no easy answer: how do you build a reliable, autonomous food production system that can sustain astronauts on a multi-year deep space mission — in microgravity, with no ability to restock supplies, and minimal human intervention?
CRCTS designed a food production system built around 48 autonomous growth trays, each needing to be monitored, controlled, and coordinated in real time. The embedded systems challenge was enormous: getting all 48 trays to communicate reliably, respond to environmental data, and be centrally managed — without a human operator watching every node.
DBtronics was brought in during the 2022 pilot phase to lead the embedded systems architecture and build the control infrastructure that would make it all work.
The CRCTS team forms and enters the NASA & CSA Deep Space Food Challenge with a concept for an autonomous, multi-tray food production system. The challenge attracts teams from around the world. At this point, it's still just a vision — but the foundation is being set.
DBtronics is brought in during the pilot phase to lead the embedded systems architecture. The task: build the communication backbone for 48 autonomous growth trays, implement FreeRTOS-based parallelization on ESP32 microcontrollers, and architect a Raspberry Pi central server to manage and monitor the entire system from a live dashboard.
MQTT communication frameworks are designed and implemented, allowing every tray to report data and receive commands in real time — reliably, at scale, without central bottlenecks.
In January 2023, the CRCTS team presents their system to the NASA & CSA judging panel. The embedded infrastructure — built on the MQTT communication layer and FreeRTOS control system — is central to the demonstration. The system performs. CRCTS advances to the final 10 teams globally, securing $100K in challenge funding in the process.
Of all the teams that entered from around the world, CRCTS is one of ten still standing.
The final 10 global teams are invited to NASA's New York facility to present their complete systems. CRCTS demonstrates a working, full-scale food production prototype — with every tray communicating, every sensor reporting, and the central dashboard providing real-time visibility across the entire operation. The team that started with an idea in 2021 stands in a NASA facility, having built something real enough to be taken seriously on a global stage.
DBtronics’ Role
DBtronics wasn’t there from the beginning — but when the technical complexity of the build demanded dedicated embedded engineering leadership, that’s where the contribution came in. The systems built by DBtronics were central to what the judges saw and evaluated at every milestone.
Designed and implemented the messaging backbone connecting 48 growth trays — enabling reliable, real-time data exchange at scale across the full system.
Implemented FreeRTOS on ESP32 microcontrollers across the tray network — enabling concurrent task execution and real-time responsiveness at every node.
Architected and built the central control server on Raspberry Pi — aggregating data from all trays and providing live dashboard visibility across the full system.
The Results
In NASA & CSA challenge funding secured at the 2023 milestone.
Global finalist teams
Challenge funding secured
Autonomous trays networked
Final demo location, 2024
In Their Words
Explore More
Hardware Prototyping
How DBtronics builds embedded systems that work under real-world conditions..
Celium BV
Rescued a broken prototype. Delivered a working system across 4 milestones.
Azimut Medical
10x faster. 25% smaller. The first FreeRTOS system they'd ever run.
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