NASA selected 14 university teams as finalists in the 2026 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition. The RASC-AL competition tasks students to design innovative concepts that could further human life and work on the Moon, Mars, and beyond, linking academia and the aerospace community to foster innovation, collaboration, and workforce development in support of NASA’s long-term exploration goals. The 2026 RASC-AL competition invited university teams to develop proposals addressing one of four mission themes: Communications, Position, Navigation, and Time (CPNT) Architectures for Mars Surface Operations; Lunar Surface Power and Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) Architectures; Lunar Sample Return Concepts; and Lunar Technology Demonstrations Leveraging Common Infrastructure, with each topic reflecting relevant areas of exploration technology development aligned with NASA’s Artemis program and long-term human missions to Mars.
S. aviation: maintenance. Challenges facing the commercial aviation industry include a shortage of qualified maintenance workers and increasing demands to keep complicated aircraft running for longer, and this competition challenged teams of postsecondary students to conceptualize innovative systems and practices that could advance current commercial aircraft maintenance and repair operations.
The goal for RepAir: Advancing Aircraft Maintenance is to generate concepts to improve efficiency, safety, and costs for the aviation maintenance industry by 2035, with finalist projects representing an array of capabilities including robotic inspections, augmented reality smart glasses, and sensor and machine learning architectures. NASA made its selections based on a review of participants’ proposals and accompanying videos summarizing the RepAir concepts. The eight finalist teams will receive a $9,000 prize and will advance to Phase 2 of the competition, which includes a review of each team’s final paper, infographic, and presentation at the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Forum, held May 18 at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and livestreamed globally.
Following the forum, members of the winning team who fulfill eligibility criteria will be offered the opportunity to intern with NASA Aeronautics. NASA announced the winners of the 2025-2026 Dream with Us Design Challenge. The specific criteria used to select the finalists in each competition have not been disclosed, and it is unknown how many teams initially participated before the finalist selection.
Detailed project descriptions or technical specifics of the winning and finalist teams have not been released.