NASA Space Apps 2026 challenge
Build a Junior Astronaut Mission Trainer
Subjects: Games · Planets & Moons · Software · Space Exploration · Sun
Summary
Space-themed STEM content often oversimplifies the engineering trade-offs that define a real mission or presents them at a level too complex to hold a young learner's attention. Few tools make those trade-offs both tangible and fun. Your challenge is to design and build an interactive game or app that lets students run a lunar or Martian outpost, balancing competing demands like life support, radiation shielding, power, and food production, so they experience firsthand the decisions that determine whether a mission fails or succeeds.
The full challenge statement, with its data and resources, is published on 28 October. Until then, you can read this summary, talk it over with your team and plan, but the Space Apps rules say no work on the project itself before the hackathon starts.
From the NASA Space Apps Challenge. The official page is the final word on this challenge.