TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Cabinet initiative, “Run Space Innovation Challenge,” invites business professionals, researchers, and students to propose groundbreaking solutions and creative ideas for the space and satellite industries.
Since 2022, the event has attracted 500 participants in three different competition tracks — Implementation Category, Innovation Category, and Sponsor Special Topic. Teams come from diverse technical backgrounds and even foreign countries to showcase their expertise and creativity.
Participants also gain access to workshops covering business pitching, space law, English communication, and marketing design, giving them the tools to thrive in the global space industry.
Prior winners
Implementation Category winners
After last year’s competition, outstanding teams had their work exhibited at Taitronics and AIoT Taiwan. Government support has helped groundbreaking technological advancements and contributed to the evolution of space exploration and satellite communication.
Last year's winning team was Interstellar Firefly, which earned NT$300,000 (US$9,223) in the implementation category for developing the Lunar Sentinel CubeSat. The satellite was designed to monitor meteoroids and space debris in lunar orbit. Equipped with optical payloads and image processing technology, LSC can operate for a year, capturing polar region imagery to support future lunar missions.
The runner-up was Taipei EO Communication, which engineered a laser communication system for Low Earth Orbit satellites, integrating beam expansion and advanced optical reception technology to enhance long-distance satellite-ground communication efficiency. They received NT$150,000 for the project.
Third place went to RISE, an RIS-integrated solar power enhancement technology that embeds reconfigurable intelligent surfaces beneath satellite solar panels to optimize antenna design, improving LEO satellite communication while maintaining compact size and weight. They were awarded NT$100,000.
Innovation Category winners
One winner in the innovation category was DataNet — a CubeSat constellation system for secure and scalable data storage and processing, leveraging solar power for sustainability.
Another winner was Galactic Farmers, which designed a modular space hydroponic system, enabling fresh vegetable cultivation in extreme environments, ensuring long-term space mission food security.
Innovative Agriculture for Food Sustainability won by using Earth observation data and machine learning to develop an unsupervised winter crop monitoring system, enhancing agricultural yield prediction and sustainability.
Yutu Explorer also gained attention for their focus on lunar ionosphere research, utilizing GNSS occultation measurements to refine navigation and communication for future lunar missions.
And finally, RANDO, created a three-degree-of-freedom floating reaction sphere, an actuator that enhances satellite attitude control and operational efficiency.
Sponsor Special Topic winner
ENGINIUZA created a machine learning program to find unusual patterns in CubeSat Attitude Determination & Control Systems, using Extended Kalman Filter data to make satellites more reliable.
New competition highlights
This year’s competition welcomes strategic partners such as Axiom Space, a US commercial space station developer, and HEX20, an Indian satellite manufacturing and operations company. These partners will provide professional industry insights and prize resources.
Supporting partners include leading global space industry players, such as French satellite communications operator Eutelsat OneWeb, Japanese lunar exploration and resource development company ispace, and Luxembourg laser communications startup Odysseus Space.
These supporting companies will offer opportunities to help participants gain a deeper understanding of global space industry trends.
Competition orientation takes place on May 13, with submissions closing on June 30 and finalist notification slated for August. A final review will be on September 20, followed by an awards ceremony and demo day. For more information, please visit the website.
