The European Rover Challenge (ERC) 2026 will bring university students from around the world to Kraków, Poland, where teams will put their own planetary rovers through challenges inspired by real NASA and ESA space missions.
This year’s competition attracted 124 registered teams from 29 countries, with about 25 teams qualifying to compete in the finals on a specially constructed Marsyard designed to simulate the geological terrain and operational problems a robot might encounter while exploring another world.
Students must do much more than simply build a remote-controlled vehicle: their rovers need mechanical systems, electronics, cameras and sensors, communications, software, robotic manipulators, and increasingly sophisticated autonomous navigation and AI, with autonomous operation earning higher scores in the competition.
The ERC gives students an opportunity to experience the same kind of multidisciplinary engineering required for future robotic missions to the Moon and Mars while working with experts connected to organizations such as NASA, ESA, EUSPA, and DLR.
The event also includes a STEM exhibit and space-industry conference covering topics such as future Moon and Mars exploration, sustainability, and the commercialization of space. Competitions like the ERC are important because the students designing experimental rovers today could become the engineers who develop the autonomous robots that explore the Moon, Mars, and other worlds in the decades ahead.
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