COSMIC Announces C3 Design Challenge

The Consortium for Space Mobility and In-space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) Capabilities (COSMIC) is launching an annual student challenge to design and demonstrate novel capabilities in space.  

The inaugural COSMIC Capstone Challenge (C3) is a national student competition in which students have the opportunity to develop ISAM concepts and strengthen the ISAM talent pipeline. The challenge adopts a mentoring-based approach to provide the aspiring space workforce with professional guidance and diverse perspectives and mentorship from COSMIC member organizations across government, industry and academia.  

Aimed at connecting college students with the growing community pursuing ISAM-related opportunities and challenges, C3 is a conceptual design challenge in which competitors will design a space payload, to be hosted on a Blue Canyon Technologies X-Sat Venus Class satellite bus, that will demonstrate a chain of three or more operations that provide an on-orbit, autonomous ISAM capability. Successful projects will engage in the early design work necessary for a complex ISAM mission that could be ready for launch by the end of the decade. 

Shasta High School Students use ProtoSpace to demonstrate their designs for robotic vehicles. ProtoSpace is a software package that uses the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality platform for rapid, collaborative visualization of complex mechanical CAD models.
Image credit: Shasta High School Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Program

“The C3 challenge, one of the first COSMIC products to debut in the first year of our operations, applies students’ enthusiasm and fresh ideas toward hard ISAM problems,” said COSMIC Executive Director Greg Richardson. “Competition topics were nominated and selected by the U.S. ISAM community because they represent current and pressing challenges that need to be solved to make ISAM a routine part of space mission operations.” 

Though eligibility to enter is geared towards full-year capstone engineering classes, it is also open to small classes, student clubs, independent studies and any university or high-school students in the United States. U.S. space organizations which have agreed to mentor, judge or sponsor the Challenge include NASA, Benchmark Space Systems, iMetalX, The Aerospace Corporation and ThinkOrbital. 

“Students possess a unique capacity for out-of-the-box thinking when confronted with complex engineering challenges,” said Dr. Seetha Raghavan, associate dean at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and chair of the COSMIC Academia Caucus. “C3 will offer the ideal environment and mentorship to inspire innovative ideas through hands-on experience in a real mission, nurturing a new generation of professionals equipped to meet ISAM needs.” 

Interested student teams should register by Friday, Sept. 6 to participate in virtual onboarding sessions the week of September 9. COSMIC will hold a Midpoint Showcase event in December to provide participants with feedback before the C3 Final Showcase in mid-April 2025, when students will present their final payloads to industry professionals for judging and compete to have their designs chosen for funding towards internal development.  

Visit cosmicspace.org/c3/ to register a university or high school to participate in the Capstone Challenge or to register as a mentor, judge or sponsor. Questions should be emailed to C3-COSMIC@aero.org. 

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About COSMIC 

The Consortium for Space and Mobility and ISAM Capabilities (COSMIC) is a nationwide coalition working to invigorate a domestic In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) capability, with nearly 200 member organizations and nearly 900 individual members nationwide. Launched by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in April 2023, COSMIC aligns with the ISAM National Strategy and National ISAM Implementation Plan by providing opportunities for collaboration among government, industry and academia to pursue common goals in ISAM capability development. COSMIC is managed by The Aerospace Corporation, a national nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center on behalf of the U.S. space enterprise. 

Media Contact 

Parker Wishik, Strategic Communications 
COSMIC / The Aerospace Corporation 
Mobile: 708-391-7806 | E-mail: parker.wishik@aero.org