About this competition
ISSDC drops students into the role of an aerospace company responding to a request for proposal to design a space settlement. Teams are assigned departments — structural engineering, operations, human factors, automation, business — and have roughly 40 hours, including working through the night, to produce and present a complete design to judges who are practicing aerospace professionals.
The format is what makes it unusual. Students from different schools are merged into large "companies" on the spot, so a large part of the challenge is coordinating with strangers under time pressure, exactly the way a real proposal team works. Qualifying competitions run regionally, feeding a finals event.
It rewards a different student than rocketry does: the systems thinker, the presenter, the one who enjoys negotiating tradeoffs across a big team rather than machining a part.
Season & deadlines
Qualifying competitions run through the school year at regional host sites; winning teams advance to the international final in summer.
Season window: September through July.
Cost
Up to $500 — Per-student fee for qualifying events plus travel; finals travel is the significant cost.
Prizes & outcomes
International final placement; regional qualifier wins