Eligibility

Each prospective onsite team member must be a U.S. Citizen or Legal Permanent Resident and enrolled as an undergraduate or graduate student at an accredited U.S. institution of higher learning (community college, military academy, technical college, or university). Note, enrollment verification may be requested and must be certified for participation at any time during the activity period. 

• Team members must be at least 18 before arriving in Houston.
• Each team will be allowed eight badged participants to participate in the onsite culminating event. This includes a faculty advisor and seven students. These eight individuals MUST be U.S. Citizens or Legal Permanent Residents. While there is no limit on the number of participants for each team, institutions are encouraged to submit multiple different proposals if they have many interested students. Note: In previous years NASA has provided opportunities for non-badged participation in Houston. Currently there is no plan to offer an offsite option for non-badged participants in 2027.
• Each team must be accompanied onsite by and be responsible to their faculty advisor who is an adult, age 21 or older. A team that does not have a faculty advisor who is able to participate onsite will result in a rejected proposal.
• All participants MUST attend the Virtual Orientation at 4 p.m. CST on December 11, 2026, and the Virtual Software Design Review on April 1, 2027.
• Team members may only participate with one team in the same competition. Teams may not have more than two former NASA SUITS team members per team.
• Student experiments must be organized, designed, and operated by student team members alone.
• All participants must be enrolled for the activity in STEM Gateway and have accepted the offer by the deadline provided by the NASA SUITS team. Note: All team members and faculty advisor must have completed a NASA STEM Gateway profile. Only the team lead completes the NASA STEM Gateway application but sends Gateway invites to team members and faculty advisor.
• Interns involved in the design of a SUITS challenge may not participate as a member of a team in that same cycle of the SUITS challenge.

Proposals

• See the 2026-2027 Proposal Guidelines for full guidelines and regulations.

How to Apply

Complete the following steps to submit a Challenge Application in NASA STEM Gateway:

1. Team Lead, Team Members, and Faculty Login OR Create a Customized Profile – Use “SUITS NASA STEM Gateway Account Creation Instructions” to update or create an account for access to additional functionality and curated experiences.
2. Team Lead Only Apply to SUITS Gateway Engagement Opportunity – Use “SUITS NASA STEM Gateway Team Application Instructions” to apply. The challenge opportunity will only be accessible during the active (open) application period. The team lead MUST follow the 2026-2027 Proposal Guidelines.