About HackAthlone

The story so far

HackAthlone is Ireland’s biggest space hackathon and Athlone’s local event of the NASA Space Apps Challenge, hosted by TUS. Every year, students, developers, designers and scientists spend a weekend building with open data from NASA and its partner space agencies.

Group photo of HackAthlone 2025 participants, mentors and organisers filling a lecture theatre — Participants, mentors and organisers at the close of HackAthlone 2025.

Meet the team

Year by year

HackAthlone started with Sahir Sharma. He won the NASA Space Apps Challenge in 2016 and ran the event in Vellore, India, in 2017, with more than 700 participants. In 2021, while he was a teaching fellow at the University of Limerick, he brought Space Apps to Ireland: NASA Space Apps Challenge Limerick ran online during the pandemic, with more than 100 participants.

2023
The first HackAthlone
148 registrations · 22 teams · 2 global nominations (official Space Apps record, opens in a new tab)
Sahir was joined by Manav Shah and Nitish Malik, and while researching at TUS Athlone he turned the event into a full 48 hours, in person. TUS opened the Engineering Building, its labs and its equipment to the teams.
Students, professionals and space fans came from across Ireland and worked through the night on NASA’s challenges. By Sunday evening, 12 projects had gone to NASA for global judging.
2024
Growing up
214 registrations · 30 teams · 3 global nominations (official Space Apps record, opens in a new tab)
Manav travelled from India to run the event on the ground with Sahir and Nitish, and more organisations and communities came on board.
TUS again lent its labs, 3D printers and VR and AR headsets. Athlone teams submitted 24 projects to NASA, and three of them earned global nominations.
2025
Learn, Launch, Lead
270 registrations · 50 teams · 4 global nominations (official Space Apps record, opens in a new tab)
NASA’s 2025 theme was Learn, Launch, Lead. Registrations passed 270, with 18 more people on the waitlist, and 50 teams filled the Engineering Building.
Feedback from 2024 shaped the weekend: better food, better overnight facilities and showers. XR4U joined as a partner, and past participants came back as mentors.
Athlone teams submitted 33 projects to NASA. Four of them, Cea-SAR, Debugonauts, Dilly Dally and TerraWatt, earned global nominations, our best result so far. After the weekend, the 45 Day Challenge webinars with TUS Works helped teams keep building.
2026
The fourth edition
HackAthlone returns from 13 to 15 November 2026 at the Engineering Building, TUS Athlone. Registration is open now, and places are limited.
Register for 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Free, on the NASA Space Apps site
1. Opens our event page on spaceappschallenge.org
2. Sign in, or create a free Space Apps account
3. Register for the Athlone local event

Part of something bigger

A local event of the
NASA Space Apps Challenge

Space Apps is the world’s largest annual space and science hackathon. Every year, people at local events around the world take on challenges set by NASA and its partner space agencies, using free and open data.

HackAthlone is the Athlone chapter. Local winners have taken home goodies and cash prizes, and our strongest projects go forward to NASA’s global judging.

Visit spaceappschallenge.org