Student Poster Challenge

ESA and CNES are issuing a call for the Student Poster Challenge as a highlight of the Space Cost Engineering Conference 2026 in ESTEC, October 1 and 2.

Participants are encouraged to propose ideas (for space systems, space transportation, ground segment and related) centred on:

• Developing cost models within university environments;
• Implementing systems design to cost;
• Extracting insights from cost engineering projects within university initiatives like CubeSats and New Space initiatives;
• Exploring space economics through rigorous research and modelling;
• Introducing groundbreaking cost reduction strategies and technologies tailored for space exploration;
• Mega-constellation deployment;
• data lifecycle management.

Selection criteria:

• Originality of the promotion concept;
• Adaptation to a young audience, typically university students or young graduates;
• Illumination of the specificities of the space domain;

Rewards:

• Selected poster(s) will be displayed during the conference.
• Students (maximum of 2) of the best poster submission will be invited to present their work at the conference in person. These students will benefit from free conference registration, and sponsoring of travel and accommodation kindly offered by the ESA Academy; see details below.

Deadline for submission is July 5.

For inquiries and poster submission, please contact Beatriz.SanchezdelaVilla@esa.int.

The ESA Academy Conference Student Sponsorship programme has kindly offered sponsorship for travel (up to 350 euro per student) and accommodation (3 nights maximum, with reimbursement up to 300 euro per student), on top of the free admission provided by the conference organisation.

This concerns a maximum of 2 students of the winning team, under the following ESA Academy eligibility criteria:

• be minimum 18 years old at the time of the conference;
• be a citizen of an ESA Member State, Associate Member, or Canada;
• be enrolled as a student (Bachelor, Master, Doctorate) in a tertiary education academic programme (not graduating before the Conference);
• not benefit from an overlapping financial support to attend this conference, unless duly justified;
• agree with the conditions of the ESA Academy’s Privacy Policy.