NASA / North Carolina Space Grant

Sunny skies have us reminiscing on our 2026 High-Altitude Ballooning Challenge! This annual competition brings together community college teams from across North Carolina to design, build, and launch scientific payloads to the edge of space. By following the NASA design cycle, students gain hands-on engineering experience through a year-long competition that culminates in a statewide flight and retrieval event.

At this year's event in March, we had 9 teams, 115 students, 15 faculty mentors, and 5 big awards! Swipe through to see who won, and read the full recap on our website: https://ncspacegrant.ncsu.edu/2026/05/29/north-carolina-community-colleges-fly-high-in-the-annual-high-altitude-ballooning-challenge/

Overall winner = South Piedmont Community College
Highest apogee = South Piedmont Community College
Closest to predicted landing site = Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute
Best Outreach = Edgecombe Community College - critECCly stable - HAB team
Best Payload = Wake Technical Community College South Campus
Best Pic/Video = Wake Technical Community College South Campus

Congrats to Culbreth Middle School's AVID Astro-Family!

Teams from nine middle and high schools across North Carolina participated in the final year of Plant the Moon, a NASA-funded challenge that invited students to design experiments growing crops in simulated lunar soil to help researchers prepare for future Moon and Mars missions. 🌱 🌒

North Carolina best-in-show winners included Culbreth Middle School's AVID Astro-Family, Culbreth Middle School's STEMbots, Nash Central Middle School's Iron-Strong Trojans, and Rocky Mount Middle School's Raven Lunar Legends. These best-in-show winners competed for the regional awards, with Culbreth Middle School’s AVID Astro-Family team winning the middle school category! Students presented their experiment during a virtual regional awards ceremony on May 26.

Originally developed by the Institute of Competition Sciences, the international Plant the Moon Challenge was expanded across the Southeast through a NASA-funded regional partnership led by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium in collaboration with Space Grant programs in North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Florida, and Puerto Rico.

Over 15,000 students were engaged through this grant, with a focus on increasing access to Artemis-related STEM learning opportunities for underserved and underrepresented students. This year marked the final year of the regional partnership initiative, but we hope to see schools continue hands-on STEM exploration and discovery for years to come. 🚀

Tonight! Night Sky Network Webinar: Moon Joy – Science From Artemis II

Tuesday, May 26, at 9 p.m. EDT
Join Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThVgOoF6THE

The Artemis II mission captivated science enthusiasts around the world and captured a treasure trove of lunar surface observations that will spawn new discoveries.

Join the NASA Night Sky Network for a webinar featuring planetary scientist Dr. Ryan Watkins. Learn about her role helping to plan the observations taken by the Artemis II astronauts during their lunar flyby and the lunar science of the mission.

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) seeks proposals from accredited U.S. universities or other grant-eligible organizations for research grants to begin no earlier than 2027. Each proposal must identify a graduate student as a future investigator. Projects must contribute to SMD’s science, technology, and exploration goals.

Pre-proposal Teleconference: Thursday, May 28, at 1 p.m. EDT
Proposal Deadline: Tuesday, July 14

For full details and proposal requirements, visit https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?solId=%7bF9C7B701-6405-FD55-6705-EB4B190646B8%7d&path=&method=init

Whether you're interested in work or play, NASA's got options for you this summer!

Students ages 13–18 can join the NASA x Hack Club Stardance Challenge from June 1–Sept. 30 to build creative space-inspired projects from code and apps to electronics, circuit boards, models, and simulations.

NASA will provide prizes, virtual webinars, and mission data from programs like Artemis, the James Webb Space Telescope, and more: https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/space-out-this-summer-with-variety-of-nasa-stem-activities/

If you're looking for something more chill, download the new “Journey Through the Heliosphere” coloring book: https://science.nasa.gov/learn/heat/resource/journey-through-the-heliosphere-the-sun-earth-system-in-color/

NASA's Virtual Career Connection series continues with two more virtual opportunities to learn about the technical trades essential to NASA's work:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/next-gen-stem-for-careers/ -connection

We can't believe it's already been a month since the annual NC Space Symposium!

We had a blast (pun intended) seeing students share their research. Our recap is now live on the website with a full photo gallery... check it out to see if you're featured!

https://ncspacegrant.ncsu.edu/2026/05/11/nc-space-symposium-highlights-pathways-to-the-space-and-aerospace-industries/

Thank you to all of the students, researchers, industry leaders, volunteers, and sponsors that make this event possible. We hope you join us next year!

Our Team Experience and Competition Grant recipients are the coolest! We love getting to fund these teams each year and watch students take part in such creative projects. They're honing their skills in engineering, project management, collaboration, and more!

First we’d like to thank our long time supporters ! For many years they have provided and supported what we do! They’ve allowed us to grow so much as a club and who knows where we would be without them! You know it’s a good post when is at the bottom of it!

Thank you !!!!!