Registration for the 2024 NASA International Space Apps Challenge is now open. It’s your chance to build space-related visualizations, apps, and other projects for the “largest annual global hackathon.”
The challenge, whose first event was back in 2012, invites people from wide-ranging backgrounds and with diverse skills to use NASA’s free and open data to tackle real-world problems on Earth and in space. These problems will be submitted by NASA’s Subject Matter Experts, and the challenges range from creating artistic visualizations to conceptualizing and developing apps and software, covering topics including climate change, biodiversity, space exploration, and data visualization.
For example, in 2023, to address theExplore Open Science Togethertheme, teams' tasks ranged from creating customized itineraries for future space travelers and producing educational material about the many different objects in our solar system, to creating visual tools laying out the complete path of water across Earth and using publicly available imaging spectroscopy data to map biodiversity hotspots. The theme for 2024 isThe Sun Touches Everything, in celebration of the sun’s influence on our planet and the solar system as a whole.
All participants will receive a certificate, and projects are judged by space agency experts, with winners selected for one of ten global awards:
People of all ages, skills, backgrounds, and interests are encouraged to enter—the one thing that connects those involved is their interest in space and science. Whether you’re a coder, scientist, designer, storyteller, maker, technologist, or innovator, you’re invited to join. And you never know what’s around the corner if you do partake—participants from previous years have proceeded to form companies, develop careers, and network with like-minded individuals, with 57,999 people from 152 countries and territories registering in 2023.
To participate, you must firstcreate an accountvia the Space Apps website, and doing so is straightforward—simply insert your name, email address, area of residence, and, if you wish, an avatar. Then, you may register for the hackathon, and choose an event to attend. If there aren’t any events near you, don’t fret—you can join one of the many virtual events.
You can start finding and forming teams from August 17, 2025, before joining Space Apps Connect in late September, 2024. Entrants must submit their projects by midnight local time on August 04, 2025, which marks the end of the two-day hackathon event.
