Student Aerospace Challenge 2025-2026

The 20th edition of the Student Aerospace Challenge was launched on 4th November 2025 by partners from the aerospace sector including Astronaute Club Européen (ACE), ArianeGroup, Dassault Aviation, ESA and Le Bourget Air and Space Museum. For the past 19 years, they have dared interdisciplinary student teams from European universities to work on various aspects of a suborbital crewed vehicle. 

For this new edition, two vehicles are proposed: 

• a suborbital vehicle for high-speed long-range transport equipped with liquid hydrogen and oxygen rocket engines and able to transport between 10 and 20 regular passengers to a distance greater than 10 000 km (Rome to Los Angeles or Geneva to Singapore, for example) in 1 hour maximum. 

• a reusable orbital vehicle servicing low Earth orbit able to accommodate up to seven people, carry out missions allowing stays in orbit ranging from a few days in autonomous flight to several months when docked to a space station, compatible with an existing launcher or one currently under development (please specify which one). 

So far, the Challenge has engaged 280 student teams representing around 1275 university students. 

Each year, partners define several work packages corresponding to domains of study realistically related to this type of innovative vehicles. Depending on their background and interest, student teams have the opportunity to work on a topic related to one of the work packages and to explore new solutions. 

For this new edition, students can choose between the following 9 Work Packages (WPs).  

WP1 - Promotion / Communication 

WP2 - Legal framework 

WP3 - Medicine 

WP4 - Market analysis 

WP5 - Mission profil 

WP6 - Technological concepts 

WP7 - Reusable propulsion / Maintenance  

WP8 - Commercial operations 

WP9 - Crew preparation and training 

Students have to select a WP and the vehicle family they want to work on.  

Partners are looking for economically viable and environmentally friendly solutions, as these criteria are becoming more important in aerospace projects, be they commercial endeavours or agency programmes. 

Students wishing to participate in the 20th edition of this Challenge should form a team of 2 to 5 students, get familiar with the application process, obtain the oral authorisation to participate from an official member of their university and apply through the Application Form on the Student Aerospace Challenge website before 23 November 2025. The teams need to justify their WP choice by explaining its consistency with their academic background and experience as well as to provide a cover letter describing their motivation and skills. 

Each application will be studied by the Organization Committee of the Challenge. The team’s ability to work efficiently on the selected work package, the specificities of their institution and the arguments put forward in their motivation letter will be particularly important to the Committee. 

If the team is selected, the application will have to be officially validated by a representative of the team's institution and the students will be asked to follow the Challenge working instructions and schedule: 

• 17 December 2025: deadline for sending first progress report 

• 26 February 2026: deadline for sending second progress report 

• 5 April 2026: deadline for sending a 10-line summary explaining the work done 

• 23 April 2026: webinar presenting the "Aerospace Challenge Day" 

• 3 May 2026: deadline for sending final report, poster and bilingual work summary 

• 25 June 2026: The Aerospace Challenge Day

At the end of each edition, student teams are invited to the Aerospace Challenge Day, a special event bringing together the student teams and representatives of the different partners of the Challenge. This year, the participants had the opportunity to virtually meet with John McFall, member of the ESA astronaut reserve. John took part in ESA’s feasibility study “Fly!” to improve ESA’s understanding of, and overcome, the barriers space flight presents for astronauts with a physical disability.    

During this closing event, the students present their work and the best-quoted projects are rewarded with prizes, among them the “ESA Grand Prix”. This prize offers the best student team the unique opportunity to present their project to space professionals in an appropriate space-related event in Europe.  

The 19th edition of the Challenge was won by the SPHERE team composed of 3 students from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Florence. They proposed COSMOCARD a wearable device designed to provide real-time cardiovascular monitoring at the carotid level and deliver targeted, non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation at the auricular branch. COSMOCARD aims to anticipate and counteract cardiovascular instability before it becomes clinically significant.  

The team will present their project at the 29th ELGRA Symposium organised in the frame of the COSPAR Scientific Assembly  in Florence, Italy from 1 to 9 August 2026.   

Interested in applying? Fill in the application form with your team. For more information, check the Student Aerospace Challenge website.