Through hard work and dedication, team Orbit from Falcon Cove Middle School in Weston, FL earned a selection as Honorable Mention in the 2023 NASA App Development Challenge (ADC). Team Orbit has earned the opportunity to attend a virtual culminating event on April 12-14, 2023, to present their work to NASA leadership.

The challenge asks middle and high school students to contribute solutions to technical problems facing future deep space exploration missions. Team Orbit worked over 10 weeks to develop an application to visualize the South Pole region of the Moon and display essential navigation and communication information for possible use in future Artemis mission planning and training activities. The South Pole region contains multiple potential landing sites for Artemis III, the first of the Artemis missions to bring humans to the lunar surface.

Team Orbit was selected as an Honorable Mention by an interview panel including engineers and scientists working with NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) team and will present their app to NASA leadership in April 2023.

Led by Johnson’s Office of STEM Engagement, the coding challenge is one of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges designed to build foundational knowledge and introduce students to topics, techniques, and technologies critical to the success of the agency’s Artemis program. Participating students take part directly in the Artemis Generation endeavors in NASA’s mission to land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon.

NASA’s SCaN program enables more than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions by managing the Near Space and Deep Space Networks, ensuring continuous communications for all NASA programs, and supports the research and development of cutting-edge space technologies, such as optical and quantum communications.