Shortly after Neil Armstrong died on Aug. 25, 2012, Chuyan Chen noticed a lone white flower next to his statue on the Purdue campus. Chen had yet to hear the news.
“It was quite evident by the next morning that he had passed, and with that came quite a bit of research and awareness. Realizing that, wow! He had been here all those years ago, and what he learned from Purdue contributed to what he ended up achieving,” Chen said.
Chen soon discovered the university’s reputation as the Cradle of Astronauts and became inspired by its legacy in space exploration. She now draws upon that inspiration and her own Purdue experience in providing food system development and operations at Axiom Space in Houston. Chen directs food system support for Axiom Space’s three major programs: private astronaut missions, developing the next-generation spacesuit for lunar exploration, and building the first commercial space station.
Her work as the food system manager includes critical research and development of a holistic food system for Axiom Station to support human health and well-being in low-Earth orbit. It also includes helping select the foods that astronauts eat during commercial spaceflight missions on board the International Space Station.
She then drives flight certification for these foods through NASA’s review and approval process and finally packs them for flight. Her duties have included helping to certify the first pierogi in space for Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski during Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4).
Chen received her BS in food science and her MS in food safety and microbiology, both from Purdue. Before joining Axiom Space, she worked in the commercial food industry at Conagra and at Ferrero, contributing to legacy brands such as Banquet, Hungry-Man and Keebler. In 2022, she also co-authored a paper published in the journal Foods about a new assay that accelerates the testing time for the foodborne pathogen E. coli O157:H7.
Bruce Applegate, professor of food science, who led the work on E. coli O157:H7 testing in ground beef, said that his team continues to build on Chen’s work, applying it to lettuce and other foods.
“She’s an awesome person,” Applegate said. When faced with any challenging situation, “she just rolled with it. I’m glad she came through my lab.”
Applegate further lauded Chen as a team player, both in the lab and on the flag football field. When he needed a female player to complete his team, Chen volunteered. As a pass-rusher, he said, “she’s pretty quick.”
Chen recalled how she learned to solve problems at Purdue. “To be able to look at an environment or a situation or a clear problem and say, OK, here’s what we know. Here’s what we might not know. What are some potential resolutions to get us to a better place?”
She also appreciated that Applegate let her drive her own research. “If I hit a curb or maybe something worse, I knew that Bruce would be there to steer. But most of it was on my shoulders.”
Chen grew up in Florida after her parents immigrated from China when she was a young child.
Before enrolling at Purdue, Chen’s father steered her into food science and technology.
“He had worked in a canning factory back in China as the production manager. That’s where it started,” she said. At that point, she knew little about either food science or aerospace, “but I knew I wanted to do something that made a difference.”
Chen landed in aerospace unexpectedly. While looking for a position that would require all of her skill sets, she found an online job posting from Axiom Space. The position had already been filled when she applied. Two months later, the company asked her to interview for the food manager role that would build the company’s food system from the ground up.
Chen joined Axiom Space in 2023, shortly before the Axiom Mission 2 splashdown. Since then, she has supported Axiom Space’s two following missions. During early mission preparations, she works directly with the astronauts as they select their daily meals from a large menu of items.
NASA has dominated space food for most of its 66-year history. But Chen sees innovative opportunities for the food industry as Axiom Space and other companies have begun sending missions and payloads to low-Earth orbit. A year ago, for example, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission took Doritos into orbit.
The Doritos were packaged as bite-sized to guard against producing crumbs in zero gravity. “We call that FOD: foreign-object debris,” Chen said. Although food debris may seem harmless, it can present risks to the astronauts if it floats into the ventilation, life support systems, or other space capsule hardware.
It’s a longstanding NASA concern that first sparked public attention after astronaut John Young smuggled a contraband corned beef sandwich aboard the Gemini III capsule in 1965. Young shared the sandwich with mission commander and Purdue alumnus Gus Grissom. “Now, in human spaceflight, we continue to solve for the same concern among many others,” she said.
Last year at the NASA Deep Space Food Symposium, Chen stressed the importance of individual innovators and the food industry as she continues her search for solutions to enhance future human space exploration. “The NASA Deep Space Food Challenge was the first time novel ideas and functional food systems solutions were not only presented but proven and brought to life — a really important step for space food system development,” she said.
Aside from her work duties, Chen encourages students to consider any careers of interest, even if perceived as out of reach, in her role as a volunteer and mentor. “That is near and dear to my heart,” she said.
“When people talk about aerospace today, there’s a little bit of awe. But it really is quite accessible. I try to impress that upon my mentees, that now more than ever, there is a need for them to be interested in working on solutions for the biggest challenges we face, on Earth and beyond.”
This passion led her to become a judge member of the Conrad Challenge at Space Center Houston for high school students across the world, a science advisory board member of the Plant the Moon Challenge Jr. for elementary and middle school students, and an advisory board member of the Space Station Innovation Challenge for high school and college students.
Like the astronaut Boilermakers who have enjoyed “Hail Purdue” while orbiting Earth, Chen finds its lyrics inspiring. For her undergraduate graduation, Chen excerpted the fight song’s words “Ever Grateful” to display atop her mortarboard. For her graduate ceremony, she did likewise with the words “Ever True.”
“I’ve taken that message with me wherever I go,” she said.
