{"id":603422,"date":"2026-04-14T13:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/603422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T13:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:04:32","slug":"quebec-company-over-the-moon-after-feeding-artemis-ii-astronauts-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/603422\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec company over the moon after feeding Artemis II astronauts &#8211; Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nutritionist Christine Ch\u00e9nard has a habit of embarking on big adventures, like climbing mountains across the planet.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Recently, though, she\u2019s been setting her sights on something higher.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUp there,\u201d she giggled, pointing to the sky. \u201cIt\u2019s really amazing!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ch\u00e9nard is the co-founder of Happy Yak, a company in Cowansville, Que., that turns fresh food into freeze-dried gourmet meals. She found a way to remove most of the water and weight while preserving the flavour.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsually vegetables will lose about 90 per cent of their weight,\u201d she explained, \u201cso a 10 kg vegetable will be 1 kg after freeze-drying. So it\u2019s really, really light.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such meals are ideal for expeditions where weight is a factor. It\u2019s why one of her latest creations has caught worldwide attention \u2014 a shrimp curry meal that was carried on the Artemis II mission on board the Orion spacecraft by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and the crew.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s making us feel very proud,\u201d Happy Yak production manager Marc-Andr\u00e9 Lebel told Global News.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaking food and sending it to space \u2014 it\u2019s something we\u2019re really proud of here in Cowansville.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The shrimp curry is identical to the one they sell to the public except for a slight change in the formula \u2014 it needs warm water instead of boiling water for rehydration before consumption.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUp there, we cannot bring the water to boiling point because it could be dangerous,\u201d Ch\u00e9nard explained.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Canada<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s worldwide success first took off in 2018 when another Canadian astronaut, David Saint-Jacques, was issued four of Happy Yak meals on his trip to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n<p>With the company\u2019s help, another meal even served as a connection to his wife on earth while he orbited the planet \u2014 food from the astronaut\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe freeze-dried his wife\u2019s chili so he had nice comfort food,\u201d the nutritionist grinned.<\/p>\n<p>Ch\u00e9nard\u2019s latest achievement has put her and her entire staff over the moon. She even attended the Artemis II launch and told Global News, \u201cWe participated in that mission and for me it was really something quite new and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This life-long adventurer is now setting her sights on the mission to Mars.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d she beamed. \u201cIt\u2019s really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nutritionist Christine Ch\u00e9nard has a habit of embarking on big adventures, like climbing mountains across the planet. Recently,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[58777,49,48,226439,66,306,35678],"class_list":{"0":"post-603422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-canadian-astronaut","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-space-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}