Agency

Design Booster Proposal Instructions

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ESA / Education / Educational Satellites

ESA invites university and other tertiary education student teams from an eligible state that are designing a pico- or nanosatellite (CubeSat or PocketQube) with primarily educational objectives to propose their satellite for the third edition of Design Booster.

The programme follows a fixed schedule spanning one and a half years. Information on its timeline, activities, and milestones is captured in the Design Booster phases page.

The programme timeline is as follows:

Activity	Dates
Information session For potential applicants. Register to attend the live info session and access the recording.	17 June 2026, 16:00-17:00 CEST
Deadline for proposal submission Deliverables: satellite proposal + university or tertiary education institution endorsement letter.	2 October 2026, 13:00 CEST
Shortlisted teams are invited to the Training Week	Teams invited to the training week will be informed by mail before 9 October 2026
Training week Onsite, The Netherlands	November 2026
Shortlisted teams are invited to the Selection Workshop	Teams invited to present at the selection workshop (online) will be informed by mail before 23 November 2026
Selection workshop (online) Presentation by the student teams to defend their projects before the selection panel	1-2 December 2026 Selected teams announced within approximately 2 weeks after the selection workshop
Baseline design review	January-March 2027
Design consolidation and subsystem testing	April 2027-Feb 2028
Final design review	March-April 2028
Final presentations	June 2028

How to apply

Interested in applying to Design Booster?

Proposals that do not comply with the requirements provided in the conditions to apply (section below) may be rejected without being reviewed further. The information provided in the proposals will be treated as confidential and will only be distributed to and reviewed by the ESA panel for the purpose of the evaluation. The contact person indicated in the proposal may be contacted by ESA for further clarifications during the proposal evaluation period.

Any questions regarding applications can be directed to cubesats@esa.int.

Conditions to apply

1. Scope of the candidate satellite

Design Booster is open to university and other tertiary education (*) student teams from an eligible state, working on pico- or nanosatellites at a preliminary or detailed design stage.

Allowable form factors are 1U, 2U, 3U, 3U+, 6U for CubeSats and 1P, 2P, 3P for PocketQubes. 

The scope of the proposed mission shall be educational, and the proposal shall clarify in which way the educational objectives will be pursued.

Student team members are encouraged to prepare theses on subjects (e.g., technological, engineering, scientific…) related to their satellite mission. This shall be reflected in the proposal, and ESA will consider this as an educational asset.

The proposal shall also highlight the mission objectives of the satellite (for instance technological experiments, scientific research or other). Applications should reflect to what extent end-data users are integrated in the project. Teams are encouraged to make end-users part of the project, either with embedded support (student members or professional advisors) or in collaboration with relevant organisations. Possible business or downstream applications shall also be highlighted. These are considered assets for the application.

FYS x Young NAV

Young NAV, a community of early-career professionals is proposing a set of mission concepts focused on resilience, connectivity and navigation that could be implemented by student-led nanosatellite missions. Student teams looking for a challenging mission idea are invited to consider the ideas outlined by Young NAV. If the candidate team were selected for Design Booster, additional support from NAV will be offered throughout the programme. The NAV mission ideas white paper can be requested via ESA Learn.

(*) Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. This includes undergraduate, postgraduate, vocational and technical education.

2. Team composition

The opportunity is open to teams from universities or other tertiary education institutions of an eligible state. The applicant team shall include:  A core team of minimum 6 students complying with the eligibility criteria. It is recommended to include people from different disciplines and ensure that the team has a good range of skills addressing the many different tasks involved.

The core student team (as specified above) and all students receiving sponsorship for participating in the programme events must comply with the following eligibility criteria:
Aged minimum 18 years old;
Be a national of an eligible state;
Enrolled at a university or other tertiary education institution of an eligible state.
The number of student team members may be extended during the project lifetime. There is no limit to the maximum number of student team members.
Teams are encouraged to include students from diverse disciplines such as technicians (e.g. professional bachelors, vocational training), and non-STEM backgrounds (business, law, agriculture, architecture, and more) which align with their project goals. Teams may also consider partnering with other institutions (e.g. technical colleges) to include such team members.
Teams are invited to include early-career professionals (either from industry or academia), who may also be eligible for sponsorship if they are nationals of an eligible state.
Teams may include a limited number of students that do not comply with the eligibility criteria above, but those students will not be supported by ESA for participation in programme events, nor for training.
Involving students at a higher level of education, e.g. master or PhD level, is recommended.

In addition, a minimum of 2 supervisors shall cover these three functions:

An endorsing staff member, responsible for the project, endorsing the satellite proposal on behalf of the university or tertiary education institution;
A team leader (the endorsing staff, master/ PhD student, or an assistant of the university or tertiary education institution) coordinating the project at system level and ensuring the milestones and deadlines of the Design Booster are met;
A system engineer (the team leader, or a master/ PhD student from the same university or tertiary education institution as the team leader);
The key roles of team leader and system engineer must be undertaken by nationals of an eligible state.

Those conditions on the team composition will continue to apply throughout the entire opportunity. ESA may ask the university or tertiary education teams to provide evidence of their compliance to the eligibility criteria at any time during the project. Teams should clarify whether a turnover of students is expected during the course of the Design Booster, how the handover will be organised and how continuity will be ensured.

3. Project funding

The teams participating in the Design Booster shall rely on their own sponsors to fund the development of their satellite. 4. Partnerships and collaborations
If the proposed project is a joint undertaking of multiple parties (e.g. two universities collaborating on one mission), one single university or tertiary education institution shall act as the leading institution and the key point of contact vis-à-vis ESA. The collaborations with other organisations or institutions shall be clarified in the proposal, including a description of the mutual agreements (if applicable). Teams should detail any partnership:

with technical institutions (e.g. for manufacturing and testing) 
with end-data users (e.g. for consolidating system design and operations planning)
with industry and research institutions (e.g. to foster transfer of knowledge to students, access to facilities, funding, mentorship or internship/thesis opportunities)
with educational institutions (e.g. for outreach, inspiration and STEM engagement)
with relevant governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations (e.g. EU institutions, space agencies, NGOs).
Etc.

Note that partnerships should not compromise the educational nature of the project.

5. ESA sponsorship

Students who may directly benefit from the different forms of sponsorship that the ESA Education Office will offer must comply with the eligibility criteria. Students that do not meet the eligibility criteria cannot be sponsored by the ESA Education Office. ESA contribution in the support of the participating satellite student teams will include the following:

Support offered by the ESA Education personnel that run the programme, and by the ESA specialists who will lecture, follow up, and review the student activities;
Access to and use of test facilities;
Student sponsorship covering travel expenses, meals, and accommodation for participation in workshops, training courses, and reviews of Design Booster following the sponsorship guidelines.

6. Legal

ESA does not take ownership of the satellites. The satellite teams or their universities or other tertiary education institutions will remain the owners of the satellites, and will hold all the responsibilities related to ownership.

7. Satellite requirements

Within the proposal, student teams must report compliance to the CubeSat Design Specification rev 14 (for 1U, 2U, 3U and 6U CubeSats), or to the PocketQube Standard issue 1  (for 1P, 2P, and 3P PocketQubes) which will be used as the basis for selection. During the course of the opportunity, teams will have access to the Fly Your Satellite! Design Specification, which provides additional technical and programmatic requirements for participating teams.

Note: teams considering a future application to Fly Your Satellite! should bear in mind that only satellites compliant with the FYS Design Specification are eligible. 6U CubeSats are not eligible for Fly Your Satellite! programme.

8. Endorsement letter on behalf of the university or tertiary education institution

The endorsing staff shall write a formal letter of endorsement, including signature, in which he/she should clearly state that he/she supports the Design Booster proposal and that he/she accepts responsibility for the satellite project.

Only one proposal per university or tertiary education institution faculty or department can be considered for the proposal to Design Booster. The faculty or department will be asked to withdraw the other proposals in case of multiple applications.

9. Acceptance letter

The acceptance letter describes the Offer and the Terms and Conditions for participating in ESA’s Design Booster programme. Upon selection, the representative of the University or Tertiary Education Institution will be required to sign the letter to confirm their participation in the Programme.

The "Terms & Conditions extract" can be requested through ESA Learn.

10. Ranking and selection

All proposals will be reviewed and decisions regarding the ranking and selection of satellite teams will be made by a dedicated panel composed of ESA experts. The selection will be based on the following criteria and respective weights:

Criteria	Weight
Quality of the proposed project	30%
Mission Objectives	20%
Team and project organisation	20%
Educational Return	30%
Resilience, Navigation and Connectivity Mission Objective	5% (bonus)

Teams that engage with mission concepts focused on resilience, connectivity and navigation will receive a 5% point bonus on their total score. This incentive is intended to encourage participation in this area and to support the inclusion of themes related to resilience, connectivity and navigation in proposed missions.

If two proposals are of equal quality, priority will be given to teams and/or projects that have not yet participated in any ESA Education Office programmes. A team that is currently participating in an active ESA Education Office programme will get the least priority.

11. ESA Academy Code of Conduct
Everyone who participates in the Design Booster opportunity is a participant in the ESA Academy programme. Therefore, all participants are subject to the ESA Academy Code of Conduct.

12. Personal Data Protection

As part of their participation in the opportunity, satellite teams must provide ESA with certain personal data. Which data is collected, the purposes it is used for, to whom it may be disclosed, and how long it is kept for are all covered in the ESA Academy Privacy Notice and consent form, which should always be available on the ESA Academy webpages, and agreement with which must be made before submitting personal data to ESA.