CrafterWIKI

Event guides

agency open data challenge

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2026

A 48-hour hackathon on NASA data, run at hundreds of Local Events and a virtual Universal Event. Global awards pass three judging phases, so the submitted project page has to carry the project after your Local Event.

Dates
14–15 Nov 2026
Where
In-person and virtual Local Events worldwide, plus the virtual Universal Event
Format
hybrid
Team size
1-6

Organized by NASA Space Apps Global Organizing Team. Full record: rubric, sources and results.Organizado por NASA Space Apps Global Organizing Team. Registro completo: rúbrica, fuentes y resultados.

Before the event

Register, join a Local Event or the Universal Event, form a team of up to six, and study NASA data portals and past winners. The rules forbid starting on the 2026 challenges before the hackathon.

26 Aug 2026Registration opens
17 Sep 2026Challenge summaries published; team formation opens
28 Oct 2026Full challenge statements with data sets and requirements
2 Nov 2026Space Apps Connect opens
13 Nov 2026Project Submission and Judging & Awards guides published
14 Nov 2026Hackathon starts; project submission opens 09:00 local time
15 Nov 2026Submission closes 23:59 local time
31 Dec 2026December 2026: Global Nominees, Finalists and Honorable Mentions announced
31 Jan 2027January 2027: Global Winners announced

Rules that change your plan

RuleWhat to do about it
Teams must not begin working on the challenges before the hackathon.Before November 14, study problem families, data sources and past winners; no solution design or code for a challenge.
Full challenge statements, with data and requirements, arrive on October 28.Map your problem families to the published challenges then, and drop the families with no match.
Criteria and the award list stay provisional until the Judging & Awards guide on November 13.Re-read the rubric that day; write or revise the demo script only after the hackathon starts.
Submission closes at 23:59 local time on November 15, through the team project page.Write-up, demo video and repository are what later judging phases see; budget hours for them.
In 2025, projects had to use and link at least one NASA data source, disclose every AI tool and avoid NASA branding.Expect the same in 2026: pick the dataset early and test access on day one.
In 2025, Local Awards were separate and did not qualify a team for global judging.Aim the submission at the global criteria, not only at the room you present in.

How it is judged

CriterionWhat judges look for
ImpactCarried from 2025 until the 2026 Judging & Awards guide is published (2026-11-13).
CreativityCarried from 2025.
ValidityCarried from 2025.
RelevanceCarried from 2025.
PresentationCarried from 2025.

Judges. Expected three phases as in 2025: Local/Universal Event judges → NASA and Space Agency Partner subject-matter experts → an executive committee of agency leaders.

Criteria and award list are provisional until 2026-11-13. Recognition for 2026 Global Winners is 'to be announced'.

What to hand in

Required: At least one NASA data source or resource (expected, as in 2025)

What the corpus says

Earlier editions indexed in CrafterWIKI:

Mechanisms and judging lenses among 20 confirmed winners from 2 other events of this kind.Mecanismos y enfoques de evaluación entre 20 ganadores confirmados de 2 otros eventos de este tipo.

Mechanisms

Judging lenses

  • challenge relevance11/20
  • design ux11/20
  • impact9/20
  • scientific validity8/20
  • technical depth8/20
  • storytelling pitch7/20
  • originality4/20
  • business potential2/20

Curator note. These priors come from 20 winners of the 2024 and 2025 editions. A pre-registered backtest on the 2024 winners (docs/research/holdout-nasa-2024.md) found them only partly predictive: the agency playbook beat chance mainly through expert data made usable for everyone, which the challenges themselves ask for. Use them to check an idea, not to choose one.

Plan it with the harness

CrafterWIKI's planner runs these steps in order. The event's rules decide how far you may go before it starts.

  1. Recon: rules, rubric, judges, prizes · before the event
  2. Patterns from past winners · before the event
  3. Problems and angles · before the event
  4. Gate 1: judge panel · at the event
  5. Demo script and pitch · at the event
  6. Gate 2: team approval · at the event
  7. Architecture · at the event
  8. Build plan · at the event

Run recon and patterns fully, and angles only as problem families and angle shapes. Everything from the judge gate on waits until November 14. The repository keeps a worked example in hack-plan/nasa-space-apps-2026/.

/hack-plan nasa-space-apps-2026

How the planner works →

Ask the organizers

Sources