Houston, we have an Agreement: 175,000 students working on NASA’s hardest problem
NASA and the University System of Maryland have signed a five-year Space Act Agreement that gives students across all 12 USM universities and three regional centers structured access to NASA's open technology problems. That's more than 175,000 students.
It’s among the first agreements of its kind between NASA and an entire state university system built specifically around student entrepreneurship.
The problems point at long-term human presence in space. Technologies for future lunar and Mars missions, and the less glamorous systems that would make living somewhere off Earth sustainable.
Most student work stays in the lab. This agreement exists to push it out, into use, into market, and into the companies that will need somewhere to start.
How it works
NASA brings the problems and the expertise, the University System of Maryland brings the students, and xFoundry brings the programs that connect the two.
Two of those programs sit inside the agreement. They're connected, but they aren't a track anyone has to run from start to finish, and a team can enter at either one.
Horizons Challenge. Define the problem. A nationwide competition where teams take NASA's list of 182 need statements and break them into problems small enough to actually solve. The best ones move NASA forward and do something useful on Earth along the way. That crossover is the norm rather than the exception. Memory foam came out of NASA seat cushioning work in the 1960s, and the image sensor in your phone camera came out of JPL.
NEXPLORE Summit. Where one cycle wraps and the next one launches. Winners are announced, and students meet NASA leaders and industry partners face to face.
The Xperience program isn't part of the agreement, but it runs downstream of it. The winning topic from the Horizons Challenge becomes the target the following Xperience cohort spends the next 15–18 months solving.
Why hand this to undergraduates
Jeanette Epps, a retired NASA astronaut, gave the shortest version of the answer.
"I think we get the best ideas that way. Fresh ideas, new brains, new eyes on the task and on the problem."
That's the case for NASA. The case for students is what happens on the other end of it. Christyl Johnson, a retired NASA executive, put it in terms of what a degree is worth on graduation day.
"When a student graduates, they're no longer looking for a job and not being able to find one. They are actually building jobs themselves, creating companies and hiring people."
What happens next
Horizons Challenge II opens in September. Teams will work on technology challenges NASA has identified, and finalists pitch at the NEXPLORE Summit in April 2027 in front of NASA experts, industry leaders, and investors.
The agreement is rooted at the University System of Maryland, but the Horizons Challenge is open to student teams nationwide. Any team building a solution to a NASA-defined problem can enter.
NASA's list has 182 need statements on it. The teams that take them on start in September. Read the full announcement →
NASA and the University System of Maryland have signed a five-year Space Act Agreement that gives students across all 12 USM universities and three regional centers structured access to NASA's open technology problems. That's more than 175,000 students.
It’s among the first agreements of its kind between NASA and an entire state university system built specifically around student entrepreneurship.
The problems point at long-term human presence in space. Technologies for future lunar and Mars missions, and the less glamorous systems that would make living somewhere off Earth sustainable.
Most student work stays in the lab. This agreement exists to push it out, into use, into market, and into the companies that will need somewhere to start.
How it works
NASA brings the problems and the expertise, the University System of Maryland brings the students, and xFoundry brings the programs that connect the two.
Two of those programs sit inside the agreement. They're connected, but they aren't a track anyone has to run from start to finish, and a team can enter at either one.
Horizons Challenge. Define the problem. A nationwide competition where teams take NASA's list of 182 need statements and break them into problems small enough to actually solve. The best ones move NASA forward and do something useful on Earth along the way. That crossover is the norm rather than the exception. Memory foam came out of NASA seat cushioning work in the 1960s, and the image sensor in your phone camera came out of JPL.
NEXPLORE Summit. Where one cycle wraps and the next one launches. Winners are announced, and students meet NASA leaders and industry partners face to face.
The Xperience program isn't part of the agreement, but it runs downstream of it. The winning topic from the Horizons Challenge becomes the target the following Xperience cohort spends the next 15–18 months solving.
Why hand this to undergraduates
Jeanette Epps, a retired NASA astronaut, gave the shortest version of the answer.
"I think we get the best ideas that way. Fresh ideas, new brains, new eyes on the task and on the problem."
That's the case for NASA. The case for students is what happens on the other end of it. Christyl Johnson, a retired NASA executive, put it in terms of what a degree is worth on graduation day.
"When a student graduates, they're no longer looking for a job and not being able to find one. They are actually building jobs themselves, creating companies and hiring people."
What happens next
Horizons Challenge II opens in September. Teams will work on technology challenges NASA has identified, and finalists pitch at the NEXPLORE Summit in April 2027 in front of NASA experts, industry leaders, and investors.
The agreement is rooted at the University System of Maryland, but the Horizons Challenge is open to student teams nationwide. Any team building a solution to a NASA-defined problem can enter.
NASA's list has 182 need statements on it. The teams that take them on start in September. Read the full announcement →