Spring in Huntsville, Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has long been the season of rockets and rovers. For 20-plus years, two of NASA’s flagship education competitions – both Artemis Student Challenges – have taken place here each April: the Student Launch rocket competition and the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. Thousands of students from around the world converge across two weekends to demonstrate their technology and compete head-to-head. This year, the global COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized both events, so NASA and partners moved quickly to assess and update them, keeping health and safety at the forefront.
As the pandemic began to put limitations on travel, and schools shifted to virtual operations or closed all together, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement and event partners worked contingency plans and altered the challenge structures to accommodate these new obstacles. With the final competition events scheduled just two weeks apart, both groups had to act quickly and in tandem. The growing severity and reach of the outbreak ultimately meant cancellation of the face-to-face portions, but there is still much to celebrate, and awards to be given.
“Our OSTEM team has made great efforts to innovate and find ways to preserve as much of these competitions as possible in the face of these unprecedented conditions,” said Kevin McGhaw, program manager of Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement. “We are proud to have such an agile and creative group that has prioritized safety and still found ways to maintain the spirit of these events.”
Even in the face of these challenges and changes, students have already gained significant value from the research, engineering, teamwork and project tasks they have already completed.
Student Launch challenges teams to design, build, test and ultimately fly a payload and high-powered amateur rocket. Rockets had been scheduled to fly the first weekend in April, so the challenge team modified the timeline to avoid the need to gather in groups. Instead, they will use data and scores already collected during design and flight reviews, and will be awarding monetary prizes and honors virtually.
“With the rapidly worsening situation, we acted as quickly and thoughtfully as possible to adjust the competition in ways that allow us to reward the teams’ hard work while keeping everyone as safe as possible,” said Fred Kepner, an education program specialist at Marshall and lead for Student Launch.
Shortly after, the Human Exploration Rover Challenge team took similar action. For this competition, teams design, engineer and test a human-powered rover, culminating with a head-to-head challenge on a course simulating terrain found on the Moon and Mars. Despite not being able to proceed with the final test of their vehicle, much of the work has already been done by teams, and is able to be scored. Awards and recognitions for this year will be presented virtually. When teams return next year, they will also be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Lunar Roving Vehicle’s first operations on the surface of the Moon.
“Although we are disappointed that it isn’t feasible to host the in-person competition this year, we are pleased to still award several prizes and honors to the teams who have put the work in all year,” said Julie Clift, an education specialist and lead for Rover Challenge. “We are looking forward to welcoming teams back in 2021, which will definitely be a cause for celebration.
For more information or questions about specific changes or timelines, teams should reach out to their challenge contacts. For more information about these and all of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, visit: