The USA Mars Society has kicked off the “International Gemini Mars Design Competition” to help re-focus the human exploration of space, to ensure we send explorers to Mars in our time.

In order to help provide such direction and get a real humans to Mars program underway, the Mars Society is launching an international student engineering contest to design the Gemini Mars mission, creating a plan for a two-person Mars flyby that could be placed on the desk of the US President-elect in late 2016, and be completed by the end of his or her second term.

Mars Society Australia and Nova System has contributed significantly towards the prizes and are putting out a challenge  to Australian universities to match the commitment by entering at least one team into the international competition.

Submission date: 15 March, 2016 (US Eastern Standard Time)

Prizes: The best design will win a US$10,000 prize, with prizes of US$5,000, US$3,000, US$2,000, and US$1,000 going to the second, third, fourth, and fifth placed contestants, respectively.

Full details for the International Gemini Mars Design Competition and email contact can be found here.

As it may not be practical for a single university to cover all the disciplines to enter, universities can partner with other Australian or international universities. The team must be mainly students and student-led, but can also include academic staff and researchers, etc. Please encourage participation.