NASA TechRise Student Challenge Winners Announced

The future of scientific exploration and discovery in space is bright.

Last week, NASA announced 57 winning teams in the inaugural NASA TechRise Student Challenge, 24 of which will fly experiments on a future flight of New Shepard. The other winning teams will fly their experiments on a sounding rocket or high-altitude balloon test flight.

Nearly 600 teams applied, representing 5,000 6th- through 12th-grade students from across the country. The winning teams will gain real-world STEM experience by designing, building, and launching experiments that will autonomously operate and collect data. Experiments flying on New Shepard will experience approximately three minutes of microgravity, enabling a wide range of science and technology experiments.

Winning proposals included understanding the effects of microgravity, measuring greenhouse gases, space farm irrigation systems, lunar dust mitigation, and exploring human health in space.

“Thank you to all of the NASA TechRise participants for sharing your amazing ideas and congratulations to all the winners,” said Dr. Erika Wagner, Payload Sales Director at Blue Origin, and a Club for the Future Ambassador. “Your collective creativity and passion for STEM will help drive our future of life in space. We’re thrilled to collaborate with you on the innovative experiments you’ve designed and we can’t wait to fly them on New Shepard.”

Each team will receive $1,500 to build their experiment. A slate of nearly 500 volunteer judges, including teachers, NASA personnel, and technology subject matter experts, offered their time, passion, and expertise to review entries and select winners across a broad geographic distribution.

See the full list of winners and follow the NASA TechRise Student Challenge news. For more information, please see NASA’s announcement.