How the RIOT Challenge Works: Structure, Timeline, and Deliverables

How the RIOT Challenge Works: Structure, Timeline, and Deliverables

The RIOT Challenge is a hands-on research competition where student teams design and run their own off-world experiments. Teams design the experiment. We supply the regolith. Here's how the challenge is structured, what's due along the way, and the key dates to put on your calendar.

Why RIOT

RIOT, short for Regolith Innovation for Off-World Technologies, exists to help build the people and technology a permanent Moon base will need, and the Mars missions that follow. Living and working off-world means using what's already there: turning regolith into building materials, oxygen, water, and more. RIOT gives university teams and industry partners a hands-on way to start that work now, with real simulant, real experiments, and real results. Along the way, students gain the skills and experience the growing space workforce is looking for, and the community gains data that moves in-space resource use forward.

Key dates

  • Proposal submissions open: November 1st
  • Proposal submissions close: February 1st
  • Challenge starts: February 16th

How to join

  1. Pick your track. Choose Lunar (highlands or mare) or Martian, based on the experiment you want to run.
  2. Get your bundle. Choose the simulant bundle that fits your experiment: 3 kg for $300 or 5 kg for $400. Both bundles include your challenge entry fee, shipping, stickers, and a team t-shirt discount. The first 25 teams get 10% off their bundle with code RIOT10.
  3. Submit your proposal. Upload your research plan and category to our submission dropbox (link coming soon) using the Research Proposal template (PDF).
  4. Run your experiment. Four months of work with biweekly check-ins and guest talks.
  5. Submit your results. A final report and presentation, judged within your category.


From first idea to final results

Over four months, every team completes six deliverables, from the first proposal to the final presentation. We provide a template for each one.

Challenge categories

When you submit your proposal, choose one of six research categories. Teams compete against others in the same category:

  • ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization)
  • Construction
  • Dust Mitigation
  • In-Space Manufacturing
  • Mobility & Excavation
  • Astrobiology

There is one winner per category, and winners can earn:

  • Publication opportunities
  • Simulant credits
  • Feature recognition
  • Future funding

Sponsor prizes raise the stakes even further.

Get involved: we're still looking for partners

RIOT is growing, and we're still looking for people and organizations to help make it happen:

  • Campus Ambassadors to represent RIOT at their university, support teams, and lead biweekly check-ins.
  • Sponsors to fund prizes and help bring off-world research to more students.
  • Technical Advisors to share their expertise and mentor teams through their experiments.

Interested? Reach out to us and help build the next generation of off-world research at RIOT@spaceresourcetech.com.

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