NASA INTERNATIONAL SPACE APPS CHALLENGE · 2026

LOCAL EVENTS

Participants Guide — Local Events

Two days. Open data from NASA and its Space Agency Partners. No space background required.

01

What Space Apps is

Space Apps is the world’s largest annual hackathon. Over one weekend, teams at hundreds of events around the world use open data from NASA and its Space Agency Partners to build solutions to real problems on Earth and in space. Challenges are written by NASA subject matter experts and span software, hardware, data science, design, and storytelling.

The 2025 edition, in numbers:

India, Egypt, Brazil, Türkiye, and the United States sent the most registrants in 2025. For 2026 the partner count rises to seventeen, with Angola, the Korea AeroSpace Administration, Nigeria’s NASRDA, and Senegal’s agency joining for the first time.

Local teams have competed since the inception of the NASA Space Apps Challenge in 2012 and have produced global winners four times. In 2026 Local Events return city by city, each run by its own Local Lead and all feeding the same global judging pipeline.

02

Space Apps Challenge Brief

The NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 comes to your city on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 November. Local events run a day ahead of the 14–15 November global window so the hackathon falls on the local weekend. Any student can take part — from a city venue where one is confirmed, or virtually.

Continuing the legacy, with the Local Leads. Local teams have entered Space Apps since the challenge began in 2012, taking four global championships and putting teams into the finalist round again and again. The 2026 edition carries that record forward under the city Local Leads. Each Local Lead runs their own city event, on a shared calendar, a two-day format and one judging pipeline.

Local teams on the global podium

Four local teams have taken a global championship, and several more have reached the finalist round. In the most recent cycle the city events produced over 500 projects; the fifty strongest teams were invited to the physical 48-hour hackathon and the rest competed virtually.

Run of show — Day 1, Friday 13 November

Run of show — Day 2, Saturday 14 November

All times Asia/Dhaka. Individual cities may shift a slot; your Local Lead confirms the final agenda.

Pre-event Data Bootcamp

• AI-native product engineering

• Using NASA data

• Building a winning Space Apps solution, plus an open Q&A

Local logistics

Anowar Parvez Rabbi, Local Logistics Coordinator — design@basis.org.bd, +880 1886 886790. He also leads the pre-event Data Bootcamp.

City Local Leads

03

The essentials

04

Two registrations, one project

Each Local Event runs a local pre-registration alongside the global NASA registration. They are separate systems and you need both. Teams lose their place every year by doing only one.

READ THIS TWICE

Pre-registering locally does not register you with NASA. Whatever happens at your local event, you must register your team and submit your final project on the NASA Space Apps website — that submission is the only thing global judges ever see. The closing date for local pre-registration is set by the Local Leads and announced with the form; do not wait for it.

05

Mission timeline

NO CHALLENGES YET

The 2026 challenges do not exist publicly yet. Summaries arrive on 17 September and full statements on 28 October, both written fresh for The Next Frontier. They appear at spaceappschallenge.org/2026/challenges — set “Show Challenges From” to “2026 NASA Space Apps Challenges” in the top-right corner, or you will be reading last year’s list. Nothing carries over, and a project built against a 2025 statement will not be judged.

06

Who should join

Students, technologists, and citizen scientists. No matter your age, skill level, or professional background, when you take part you join a global community that uses NASA open data to answer today’s most pressing science and space exploration challenges.

The strongest teams are the mixed ones — six developers usually lose to a team with a developer, a designer, a domain researcher, and someone who can tell the story in three minutes. Developers, designers and artists, data scientists, researchers, hardware and robotics engineers, storytellers and filmmakers, entrepreneurs, educators, students of any age, citizen scientists, and anyone curious enough to try.

Eligibility

• Open to all ages, all nationalities, all skill levels.

• Participants under 18 must be registered for the event by a parent or legal guardian, and must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian at all times during the event.

• Full rules are in the Participant Terms & Conditions at spaceappschallenge.org/legal.

Team rules

• One to six members. Teams may be cross-city.

• One event per participant — your project competes there.

• You may finalise or change your team any time before you submit.

What counts as a project

• Software, hardware, a data product, a model, a game, a design, a film, or an article — all are valid.

• It must use open data from NASA or a Space Agency Partner.

• It must answer one published 2026 challenge.

NOBODY PAYS

Participation is free at every event, everywhere. If you are asked to pay money for any part of a NASA Space Apps event, do not pay anything — report it to info@spaceappschallenge.org.

07

Local Events

Space Apps runs at hundreds of events around the world. Local Events are organised by Local Leads and may be in person or virtual; every Local Event runs the same two-day format and feeds the same global judging pipeline. What differs is the venue, the mentors in the room, and the local prizes.

Cities that have hosted Local Events in recent years. The confirmed 2026 list is published at spaceappschallenge.org; only a listed event can register participants and nominate projects. To bring Space Apps to a city that is not listed, see spaceappschallenge.org/host-an-event.

Your Local Events

If a physical venue is confirmed

Physical venues are being planned alongside the virtual event. Where one is confirmed, it provides power, seating, and working internet; mentors on the floor across both days; and an opening briefing, checkpoints, and a closing pitch session.

If there is no event near you

• Register for the virtual Universal Event and take part from anywhere.

• Coordinate through Space Apps Connect and your team’s own channel.

• Universal Event teams are judged on exactly the same criteria.

08

Your three videos

Local teams make three videos, not one video cut three ways. Two run to 240 seconds and gate your place locally; the third runs to 30 seconds and is all a NASA judge on the other side of the world will ever see. Budget real time for each — strong projects lose here every year.

CHECK WITH YOUR LEAD

Video 2’s 1 November date sits oddly against the run of show in section 02, which puts the 240-second upload at 6:30 PM on Friday 13 November — day one of the hackathon. The time matches exactly, so 1 November may be a carry-over; treat the run of show as the working schedule and confirm with your Local Lead.

Video 3 is solid: the 12:00 PM cut-off on the final day is the long-standing rule for the global nomination video, and your Local Lead needs it before nominations go to NASA.

The prescreening video is due before challenge statements are published on 28 October, so build it from the challenge summaries released on 17 September. Concept only is fine at that stage — that is what the form asks for.

Adapted from the official NASA Space Apps 240 Seconds of Glory pitch model. Use it for both 240-second videos — video 1 stops at the concept, video 2 fills the third and fourth blocks with the working build.

Prescreening to local judging

• Video 1 secures your seat, and it can be re-cut right up to the hackathon.

• Video 2 is the same pitch with the demo dropped in and your NASA datasets named on camera.

• Video 2 goes to YouTube and to the Google Drive folder your Local Lead provides.

Hard limits on the 240s

• Under 240 seconds. Over-length videos get cut off, not excused.

• Name every team member — both videos, every time.

• Credit any third-party asset, template, or generated content you used.

A 30-second beat sheet. The hard rules are NASA’s; the timings are a working suggestion, not a requirement.

Where video 3 goes

• YouTube or Vimeo, then the link goes into both the Google Form and your NASA project page.

• Test the link in a private window. If a judge cannot open it, your project cannot be judged.

• A seven-slide deck is an accepted NASA alternative to the video — but the video travels better.

Do not lose marks on this

• English subtitles are required on video demos; slide decks must be in English.

• No recognisable names, voices, or faces of anyone under 18.

• Show the thing working. A slideshow about a thing is not a demo of a thing.

• Finish your Space Apps documentation alongside video 3, not after it.

09

Be ready before day one

• Registered and assigned to an event — Do it the day registration opens.

• Under 18? Guardian registered you and is coming — They must be with you throughout the event.

• 240-second prescreening video uploaded — YouTube link in the Google Form by 1 October, 11:59 PM.

• Team confirmed, roles agreed — Decide who builds, who researches, who presents.

• NASA Earthdata account created — Free, and the gateway to most Earth-observation datasets.

• GitHub repository ready and public — Judges look at what you actually built.

• Environment set up and tested — Install and test before you arrive, not at hour two.

• Datasets downloaded offline — Never rely on venue bandwidth for a large download.

• Laptop, charger, extension cord, power bank — Sockets run out fast.

• Slide template and demo script started — Two hours of prep saves you the last two hours.

• Sleep, food, and water planned — It is a two-day sprint, not an all-nighter contest.

10

Submitting on the NASA site

Everything global judges see lives on your NASA project page. Nothing else — not your local pitch, not the room you were in, not how hard the weekend was — reaches them. Fill it in properly during the hackathon, not in the last twenty minutes.

Step by step

What each field must contain

The three Project Details blocks

• The why, the what, the how — How you addressed the challenge, and how you developed the project — listing every dataset you used, in detail.

• Community involvement — What you hope to achieve, anything important the reader must know, your highlighted features, and the benefits they bring.

• Tools and technologies — Tools, languages, and frameworks used, with credit given generously.

UNDER-18 RULE

Recognisable names, voices, and likenesses of people under the age of 18 must not appear in any video or project submission. Plan your demo around this from the start — reshooting on Saturday afternoon is a bad way to spend your last hours.

11

How you are judged

There are three passes, and one score sheet runs through all of them. Whether you sit at the mainstage in Dhaka or work from your bedroom in Cumilla, the same five judges score your city’s projects against the same criteria.

To be eligible for any award, you must

• Answer an official 2026 Space Apps challenge — One published challenge, clearly named on your project page.

• Link a public repository — Code and documentation, openly accessible — test the link.

• Use NASA open data — Other data is welcome on top. NASA data is not optional.

• Keep event code open source — Anything you build during the weekend stays open.

• Register and identify every team member — On the team’s NASA page, with roles.

The score sheet

Criteria 1–5 carry the headline 100 points. Criteria 6–8 add up to 15, and 9–11 add up to 3, for a maximum of 118 before the bonus. The 5% is applied to the aggregate at the end.

The anchor scale for criteria 1–5

1 · Impact

What is the project’s potential for significant impact, in quality and quantity? Does it address a major problem or a minor one? How far does it inspire or help others?

Judges ask: Who benefits? How many? How measurable is the positive effect?

2 · Creativity

How original is the approach? Is this a novel concept, or a meaningful improvement on an existing one? Does the creativity distinguish it from conventional methods?

Judges ask: Does this feel fresh and surprising, or predictable and routine?

3 · Validity

Is the method grounded in scientific principles? Is it technically feasible? Would it work in the real world, and can an ordinary person use it?

Judges ask: Would this work if deployed tomorrow? Is it rigorous and trustworthy?

4 · Relevance

Does the project fully and directly answer the challenge it was submitted against? Is NASA data a core component of the method, or a superficial addition?

Judges ask: Is this NASA-data-first, or just NASA-data-added?

5 · Presentation

How clearly did the team convey the challenge, the method, and why it matters? How well-structured and engaging was the storytelling?

Judges ask: Could a global audience understand and remember this in 240 seconds?

JUDGING FAIRLY

Judges are briefed to check themselves for affinity bias — favouring people with similar backgrounds and interests; confirmation bias — favouring what supports their existing beliefs; and the halo effect — letting one positive impression colour everything else. Every team in a region is scored by the same panel of five judges. That is the structural guarantee behind the promise that where you sat does not matter.

NOTE FOR JUDGES

At the prescreening pass, projects arrive incomplete — NASA has not published the full challenge statements yet. Score them from that perspective. The one non-negotiable: read the challenge, and check that the presentation actually answers it. That is what relevance is measuring.

12

Awards and nominations

At your city

FINAL MEANS FINAL

Local judging is at the discretion of the panel appointed for each location, and the decision is final. Nominations are decided behind closed doors and cannot be appealed — a team that challenges the decision is automatically removed from global nomination.

Globally

NASA experts review nominations from Local Leads worldwide, shortlist roughly thirty Global Finalists, and pick one winner in each category below. They judge from your project page — so keep the description, the video, and the open-source links current right through the judging window. Global winners are featured on the Space Apps website and invited to visit a NASA centre with the Global Organizing Team; travel, meals, and accommodation are the winners’ own responsibility.

Local judges also tick which of these categories they are nominating a project for. That is a yes/no mark, not a score — it does not affect your points.

13

Why it is worth your weekend

• Real data, real stakes — You work with the same open datasets used by scientists and mission teams, on problems written by the people who study them.

• A portfolio piece — A finished, documented, publicly judged project is worth more in an application than any certificate.

• A global stage — Local teams have won global categories before. The nomination path from your city to NASA judging is short and real.

• The network — Mentors, judges, and the people you build with over two days tend to stay in your life far longer than the weekend.

14

Conduct and support

• The standard — Space Apps aims to be a place where everyone feels they belong, is comfortable being authentic, and is empowered to contribute fully. Discrimination, harassment, and bullying in any form are not tolerated.

• If you experience or witness it — Contact your Local Lead, the NASA Space Apps Global Organizing (GO) Team at conduct@spaceappschallenge.org, or both. The GO Team will take appropriate action, which may include warning or expelling offending participants from the event.

• Accessibility — If you need step-free access, an interpreter, a quiet space, or anything else to participate fully, contact your Local Lead before the event so it can be arranged.

15

Questions we get every year

Where do my code and documentation go?

Push everything to GitHub and give the link: your code, your full documentation, your journey, your project description, your video, your poster, and any other links. Google Drive or OneDrive is accepted instead — but the folder must be set to full public access, and you should test it in a private window before you submit.

Can I use someone else’s content?

No. You may not use copyrighted material, or anything owned by someone else, without their explicit consent. This applies to code, images, audio, footage, and datasets alike.

Can I use AI-generated content?

Yes, with conditions: you need a valid reason for using it, you must explain your prompts, and you must show where your own creative work went. Unexplained generated content is not acceptable, and any tool used to generate content must be named in your description.

What about stock content?

If you intend to win, do everything yourself. Where you genuinely must use royalty-free material, add a disclaimer, credit the source, and give a valid reason for using it.

And premium or paid content?

Allowed, with proper credits, disclaimers, and reasons — provided it supports your solution rather than being it. A purchased website theme is fine when the content on the site is yours; a Figma template is fine when you have customised it. The core must be your own work.

Where do I find this year’s challenges?

At spaceappschallenge.org/2026/challenges. Set “Show Challenges From” in the top-right corner to “2026 NASA Space Apps Challenges” — the page can default to a previous year, and every year teams build against the wrong list. Summaries land 17 September, full statements 28 October.

16

Bookmarks and contacts

Bookmark these

Talk to someone

Contacts for Local Events

Space Apps runs at hundreds of events around the world. Local Events are organised by Local Leads and may be in person or virtual; every Local Event runs the same two-day format and feeds the same global judging pipeline. What differs is the venue, the mentors in the room, and the local prizes.

All Local Events are live on the Space Apps site. Register for the city you will compete from — that is where your project is judged and nominated. Your Local Lead also runs the local pre-registration form, the mentor roster, and the Google Drive folder for the local judging video.

#NASASpaceApps #SpaceApps2026 #TheNextFrontier #Hackathon #NASAOpenData #STEM #Innovation

Dates follow the official NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 timeline. Verify at spaceappschallenge.org before you rely on them. Theme artwork © NASA Space Apps Challenge.