CORE, together with Space Hub Perth, was proud to host this year’s International NASA Space Apps Challenge on 3-4 October, for a fifth year and in a first all-virtual format. Bringing our skilled technology, engineering, creative and innovation community together for world’s largest hackathon, Perth teams joined the global Space Apps community to produce 2,303 projects this year, involving thousands of participants in hundreds of cities around the world.
This year’s two Perth winning teams were Team System Health Lab from UWA – members Frinze Lapuz, Sophie Giraudo, Eddie Atkinson and Matteo Vinci (Curtin), who developed an operational sleep shift scheduling tool to help astronauts in space have an autonomous, customised schedule for sleep, exercise, and nutrition to manage fatigue; and Team Loud & Clear from Scitech – Lisa Fletcher, James Pritchard, Leon Smith, Robyn Shrosbree, Michael Sequeira and Quinton Soe-Win, who presented a solution to the challenge “Can you hear me now?” with an interactive game to explore the challenge of communicating with astronauts on Mars from Earth, including accounting for time delays.
We are thrilled that Team Loud & Clear has been nominated by NASA judges as one of the 40 Global Finalists in 2020. It is remarkable to note that now three Perth teams have now made the NASA-judged global finalists in the past five years, out of thousands of teams. The Scitech team also received 1 of 6 global honourable mentions in 2019.
Team Loud & Clear
“We came, we saw, we ate burritos, and we solved - we love Space Apps!” – Perth Global Finalist Team Loud & Clear at the end of the hackathon weekend.
Conrad Pires, founder and CEO of Picosat Systems, a nanosatellite startup, and Space Hub Perth Lead, and CORE Space Startup in Residence said,
“The global innovator community is at the heart of Space Apps. We are thrilled that Perth teams consistently bring enthusiasm to participate and are recognised for their outstanding capability in solving challenges on a global stage. We warmly thank our event Sponsors, Partners, Mentors and most importantly, our Participants who reflect WA’s growing space innovator community and capability.”
Momentum is growing in the Australian space sector. The goal of the Australian Space Agency’s Australian Civil Space Strategy 2018-2029 is to triple the Australian space economy to $12 billion and create an additional 20,000 jobs. It particularly notes Australia’s existing capability to be leveraged in satellite communications, remote operations and automation.
Tamryn Barker, CORE Co-founder & Skills Lead notes, “Space Apps provides an open and fun opportunity to better understand and solve space-inspired challenges and join a growing community of capability in WA that underpins an emerging strength in the space sector, drawing on existing strengths in resources and technology.”
Space Apps has inspired participants to consider entrepreneurial endeavours and careers in space, technology and science and help meet the Australian Space Agency’s goals.
Notably, members from the 2016 Space Apps Challenge winning team, Team Inspiro, went on to form two space start-ups here in Perth, Picosat Systems and Exodus Space Systems;
A member of the 2018 People’s Choice winner, The Guardians of Humanity, went on to graduate from the International Space University’s Masters program in Strasbourg, France and join space startup RocketLab in New Zealand;
Another member of the same team pursued and secured an internship with the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy; and
A member of the 2019 team Trash Culture is the National Engagement Manager for the Australian Youth Aerospace Association (AYAA).
We are grateful to our 2020 event Sponsors – Curtin Institute for Computation (Gold), NERA - National Energy Resources Australia (Silver), Pawsey Supercomputing Centre (Silver), Partners – Spacecubed, Unearthed, Space Industries, Atomic Sky, Exodus Systems, Picosat Systems, Omni Biotech, Engineers Australia, Kool Kreative and Startup News; awesome Mentors and Participants across the wider space innovator community.
One of the judges of this year’s event was Joshua Letcher, founder and CEO of Space Industries, a highly innovative startup based in Perth, and space startup and space innovator finalist of the year in the inaugural Australian Space Awards 2020. In previous years, CORE for Space Apps hosted special guests NASA Astronaut Dr Scott Parazynski, US Astronaut Hall of Fame and Enrico Palermo, COO of The Spaceship Company, Virgin Galactic’s engineering, manufacturing and test flight enterprise in the US. We are excited to welcome Enrico back to Australia in his new role as Head of the Australian Space Agency.
CORE is Ecosystem Partner for The Generation Space on 4 December 202, a wide-ranging Virtual forum about Space and Space Exploration to inspire, educate and transform all generations. Complimentary tickets are available for the space innovator community. Contact us.
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About Space Apps
Space Apps Perth is jointly organised by CORE Innovation Hub and Space Hub Perth - a community group dedicated to growing a space startup community of practice. Participants were supported by space, innovation, startup and data science expert mentors over the weekend.
The International Space Apps Challenge is NASA’s incubator innovation program to spur innovation by convening global citizens around NASA’s open data to solve mission-driven challenges. Space Apps embraces collaborative problem solving, with a goal of producing open-source solutions to challenges currently faced on Earth and in Space. CORE supports NASA's open data initiative and mission to foster innovation through a diversity of perspectives, and empowered by open data, global citizens collaborate with strangers, colleagues, and friends to solve perplexing challenges in new and unexpected ways. Space Apps is an exciting opportunity for students, technical experts, engineers, makers, designers, project managers and storytellers to come together and create something unique.
Space Apps 2020 goals are to inspire collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking; foster interest in Earth and space science and exploration; raise awareness of NASA, ESA, JAXA, CNES, and CSA data around the world; encourage growth and diversity of the next generation of scientists, technologists, designers, engineers, and artists; and with our aim at CORE and with Space Hub Perth, to encourage entrepreneurship and open innovation outcomes.
This year saw NASA collaborating with the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES). Participants were able to engage with these experts over the weekend to receive feedback or data from them.
Contact
Tamryn Barker, CORE Innovation Hub tamryn@corehub.com.au
Conrad Pires, Space Hub Perth Lead conrad@picosat.systems
Social Media
@CORE_Innovation @SpaceHubPerth
Team Loud & Clear with their NASA Space Apps Prize Lunchboxes