01
Design
Choose the power system, instruments, battery and communications. Mass, power, budget and data capacity update on the same screen, and every option has a short "why it matters" line.
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026Space Mission Design Game
Touchdown MarsThe Manifest
Design the cargo mission that keeps a Martian research outpost running, then live with your choices on the surface.
A mission-design game about power, transport mass, budget and data return. Pick a power system, instruments, battery and communications, fly the mission, run the outpost in first person, and read a report that traces every outcome back to a decision.
The mission loop
Design. Launch. Live. Evaluate.
The main decision happens before launch. The surface phase is where you find out whether that decision was right.
02
Launch
Launch, transfer and landing play out as short timeline cards. Physically impossible packages and budget overruns cannot launch.
03
Live
Walk the outpost in first person. Your design shows up in power generation and in which science tasks are available. An instrument you didn't bring means no measurement.
04
Evaluate
The mission report starts with Pass or Fail for each acceptance criterion, then covers science output, resource use and the reasoning behind each outcome.
Back to Design keeps your previous choices. Change one thing and fly again with the same events, the same duration and the same starting state.
First objective
A mission contract with three explicit conditions.
Every mission starts from a contract, not a score. A high science result never hides a failed life-support requirement.
The first flight opens with Resilient Outpost. Further objectives unlock after the first flight.
ObjectiveResilient Outpost
- 1Life support stays onlineThe outpost's life support keeps running for the whole surface phase.
- 2Mission energy demand is metGeneration and storage cover what the mission needs, phase by phase.
- 3Required science data reaches EarthData collected locally only counts once it has been returned.
Each condition is reported separately PASSFAIL
Engineering trade-offs
Every kilogram, watt and bit is a decision.
Designs are checked against limits, but risky designs are allowed. Learning from consequences is the point.
Solar or fission
SolarLighter, but output drops when dust reduces sunlight.
FissionSteady output, at a real mass and budget cost.
Why it mattersThe storm's date and severity don't depend on your design. Your power choice only changes what that storm does to you.
Science you can actually do
Each instrument enables specific measurement tasks and draws power while it runs. Operating time is defined explicitly. Instruments don't run at peak draw by default.
Why it mattersA high-draw instrument can push the power budget into deficit, and something else gets throttled.
Data has to get home
New data goes into local storage. How much gets sent depends on the open contact window, the effective link rate and the energy available to the transmitter.
Why it mattersData that can't be sent waits in storage. Once storage is full, new data is lost and the loss is logged.
Energy between phases
Production and consumption are multiplied by each phase's duration to update the battery's energy balance. Peak power and daily energy are never treated as the same quantity.
Why it mattersPower (W) and energy (Wh) are shown separately, so you can see which one you ran out of.
Every package is checked
Total mass sent is the sum of surface payload plus cruise and landing hardware, and it is checked against the transfer profile's capacity. An indivisible module doesn't fit just because you add launches.
Why it mattersWhen a limit is exceeded, the line shows the overrun with units and at least one fix with its cost.
Cheap isn't the same as good
Leftover budget only counts as efficiency among designs that meet the requirements. A cheap mission that fails hasn't won anything.
Why it mattersTwo different successful solutions keep the decision from turning into a memorized answer.
Fair comparison
Same events. One change. A different outcome.
Both attempts replay a pre-generated event list rather than just reusing a random seed, so the storm can't move because you changed your design. The report shows which change caused the difference.
Attempt ADesign 1
- Acceptance criteria Pass / Fail each
- Budget used reported
- Data collected vs returned reported
- Tasks completed reported
Attempt BDesign 1 + one change
- Acceptance criteria Pass / Fail each
- Budget used reported
- Data collected vs returned reported
- Tasks completed reported
The comparison screen shows these side by side instead of a single total score. "Why" lines come from the recorded event chain. For example: in phase two, energy demand exceeded generation, the battery ran out, instrument time was cut, and the target data product wasn't completed.
NASA references
Real mission numbers behind simplified game rules.
Every sourced value in the game is labeled, and so is every game assumption. These references explain why mass delivered to the surface is the tightest constraint in the mission.
≈ 23%of launch mass was the rover
Rover 899 kgEDL system 2,401 kgCruise stage 539 kg
The subcomponents add up to about 3,839 kg. The press kit's pound values are consistent with that total. Its printed kilogram total (3,893 kg) looks like transposed digits. That last point is our own arithmetic, not a published NASA correction.
In the gameIt explains why transport hardware has to be counted. It is not used as a universal landing efficiency.
NASA · Mars Science Laboratory Landing Press Kit, July 2012, p. 6 ↗0.3–1 tlanded by flown systems so far
NASA's Moon to Mars architecture work notes that human-class landers need more than 20 t on the surface, and robotic designs can't simply be scaled up to that.
In the gameContext only. Crewed landing is outside the game's scope, and crew transport is assumed to be provided.
NASA · Moon to Mars Architecture, Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing, Feb 2025 ↗Relay ≠ zero delay
A Mars-orbit relay can improve surface contact windows, but it doesn't remove the light-time delay between Earth and Mars. Disruption can be reduced through architecture and geometry, not eliminated.
In the gameThe relay card states that the delay remains.
NASA · 2023 Moon to Mars Architecture Concept Review White Papers ↗kg · W · Wh · bit/s
Mass in kg and t, power in W and kW, energy in Wh and kWh, data in bits and bytes, distance in km. Gauges show mass, not weight. Surface time runs in sols (≈ 24 h 39 min), and energy per sol is never mixed with energy per Earth day.
In the gameUS customary units only appear in source notes as original values.
NASA OIG · Report IG-10-011 on NASA's metric (SI) policy, 2010 ↗Challenge fit
Design, manage and simulate a mission.
The Space Mission Design Game challenge asks for a mission to be designed, managed and simulated, with engineering decisions and limited resources evaluated.
- Objective → requirements: a contract with explicit acceptance criteria.
- Design under limits: mass, power, energy, budget and data capacity on one screen.
- Simulation: a short surface mission where the design changes what's possible.
- Evaluation: a report built from recorded decisions and events.
- Redesign: one change, same events, comparable outcome.
Scope & limitations
What the game is, and what it isn't.
- Cargo and surface operations only. Crew transport and return infrastructure are assumed to be provided.
- Simplified models. Transport, landing, resource and communication models are educational simplifications.
- Game values. Budget and science weights are game balance values, labeled as such.
- No unverified physics. No trajectory calculation or health-risk model is presented as validated simulation.
- Guided and Advanced modes. Nothing unvalidated is labeled "realistic".
Touchdown, beyond Earth
Mars is the first destination.
The same loop of designing under constraints and living with the consequences could carry over to other worlds. These destinations are future directions and are not in the current build.
Mars
Cargo mission for a research outpost, with dust events, long contact delays and every kilogram counted.
Moon
Short light-time, long nights. A different balance between power storage and communications.
Venus & beyond
Extreme environments where survival time becomes the main design constraint.
Build status
A hackathon prototype, documented honestly.
This page describes the game's design. It will be updated to match exactly what the submitted build does, including the demo and real playtest results.
In progress
Windows build
Download at submission
Unreal Engine 5.8 package, tested on a second PC without developer tools before it goes live.
In progress
Demo
30-second demo + full run
Captured from the working build only. No staged footage.
Planned
Playtest
Real participants, real count
Short anonymous sessions with adult volunteers at the event. If no test happens, no results will be published.