ITU Bellatrix Space Team to Represent Türkiye at NASA Again

The ITU Bellatrix Space Team, founded in 2023 within the ITU Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, has once again been accepted by NASA to compete in the Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) 2025—a manned exploration vehicle competition that will be held for the 31st time.

The ITU Bellatrix Space Team will represent both Türkiye and our university as the only Turkish team participating in NASA's HERC 2025. Under the supervision of Department of Architecture faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sema Alaçam, the team will compete, led by student captains Muhammed Şükrü Açıkbaş and Sadig Safarov.

ITU Bellatrix, the first and only Turkish student team to participate in NASA's HERC, distinguished itself last year among 72 teams by winning the “Artemis Educator” award, given in honor of the competition's 30th anniversary. As a prize, the team received the NASA Artemis 1 flag, which orbited the Moon with NASA's Artemis 1 mission before returning to Earth, and proudly brought it back to Türkiye.

This year, a total of 52 student teams—27 high school and 25 university teams—will participate in the competition at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, from April 10-12, 2025, in the "Human-Powered" category. For the first time in the competition's 30-year history, a high school team from Azerbaijan, our brother country , will also be participating.

Designing a Manned Rover for the Moon and Mars

As part of the HERC 2025 competition, students will work to design and build a human-powered rover capable of traveling on the Moon and Mars, following NASA’s standards. In this simulation of NASA’s Artemis mission, each team’s rover will need to navigate a course modeled after lunar and Martian terrain, with two pilots—at least one of whom must be female.

A Comprehensive Space Ecosystem Competition

Teams are also evaluated in 14 categories, including social media engagement and providing STEM education to more than 250 people. This comprehensive competition encourages participants to build a robust space ecosystem.

Science and Space Education for Students in Earthquake Zones

Last year, the team organized a Space and Science Festival for hundreds of students in the earthquake-affected Doğanşehir district of Malatya. This year, they aim to reach even more students across multiple cities within earthquake-impacted regions.