Attention Students: NASA Launches Power Systems Student Essay Contest | PR Newswire [Video]

, /PRNewswire/ — NASA’s fourth annual Power to Explore Student Challenge kicked off November 7, 2024. The science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) writing challenge invites kindergarten through 12th grade students in the United States to learn about radioisotope power systems, a type of nuclear battery integral to many of NASA’s far-reaching space missions.

Students are invited to write an essay about a new nuclear-powered mission to any moon in the solar system they choose. Submissions are due Jan. 31, 2025.

With freezing temperatures, long nights, and deep craters that never see sunlight on many of these moons, including our own, missions to them could use a special kind of power: radioisotope power systems. These power systems have helped NASA explore the harshest, darkest, and dustiest parts of our solar system and enabled spacecraft to study its many moons.

“Sending spacecraft into space is hard, and it’s even harder sending them to the extreme environments surrounding …