Shipments to the International Space Station (ISS) usually include scientific equipment and supplies for the crew. But the last shipment, which went up on Sunday, November 12, included a dehydrated dessert that was created by three Ulster BOCES Culinary Arts high school students.

During the 2016-2017 school year, Wallkill High School junior Angelina Violente and Kingston High School juniors Lauren Hoetger and Sara Freer created a dish that became this year's winner in NASA's HUNCH Culinary Challenge. Their prized recipe was strawberry rhubarb crisp.

In April, these three students triumphed over nine other teams from across the United Sates in a competition at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. They had to develop a recipe that was not only tasty and low calorie, but it also would also have to withstand the effects of microgravity and be reconstituted easily during the rehydration process.

The students said they decided to make strawberry rhubarb crisp because they were hoping to give the astronauts a little taste of home sprinkled with a taste of summer.

Last week, a spokesperson from the NASA HUNCH program sent the student's Culinary Arts instructor a letter informing them that the dessert created from their recipe was sent up and arrived at the ISS on Tuesday, November 14. The notice also included a copy of the report sent to the astronauts about the dessert.

"OA-8: You are already aware of the frozen goodies coming from the cold stowage folks and of course the crew care package will contain food. The summary below is of the food items supplied by the JSC Food Lab:

½ CTB of Shelf Stable Food Items: Sorry, but can't do fresh food on OA vehicles only shelf stable. Contents attached. FYI: The strawberry rhubarb crisp is the 2017 HUNCH Culinary Challenge Winner. I believe that the HUNCH folks will want to work with you on the evaluation of that product (possibly video of your evaluation???)."

There are currently six astronauts on the ISS. According to Space.com, a space and astronomy news website, the commercial spaceflight company Orbital ATK successfully launched a rocket headed for the ISS on Sunday, November 12. Besides the crisp, its cargo contained a laser-based communication system, experiments that will investigate how plants and insects grow in microgravity, as well as, some traditional Thanksgiving food items, Christmas gifts, and care packages from the astronauts' family members.

Lauren Hoetger said the team is just over the moon at the fact that real life astronauts will be eating something they created. Angelina Violente added that she hopes NASA will let them know what the astronauts think of their strawberry rhubarb crisp.

NASA Hunch Implementation Project Manager Florence Gold said, "The culinary challenge is a terrific opportunity for students to work on a team to not only create a delicious entrée or dessert in this case, but to learn about methods of thermal stabilization of foods and their nutritional qualities. Their work is evaluated by the food scientist at Johnson Space Center and out of 20 entries last year, only one, the Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp was selected to go to the ISS. Not too many high school students can put that on their resume."