The British Interplanetary Society, in association with Challenge Works by Nesta, invites you to submit your idea for the UK’s next space innovation challenge prize.
Challenge prizes have a special connection with aviation and the space sector. The 1919 Orteig Prize offered $25,000 for the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris and the 1996 Ansari XPrize offered $10 million for the first to fly a crewed spacecraft to space and back twice in two weeks, Microsoft founder Paul Allen and Scaled Composites won that in 2004 – and in 2024, Challenge Works on behalf of the UK Space Agency in the UK, and by the Canadian Space Agency in partnership with Impact Canada, ran the Aqualunar Challenge; a £1.2m international challenge prize focused on making human habitation in space possible by finding ways to purify water buried beneath the Moon’s surface, of which the British Interplanetary Society was a finalist.
The 2025 Space Innovation Prize Idea Contest
The British Interplanetary Society and Challenge Works have joined forces to launch a call for ideas, for the next challenge prize.
What’s a challenge prize?
Challenge prizes reward breakthrough ideas that solve complex problems. They’re open competitions with outcome-based funding, expert support, and a grand prize to scale the best and winning solutions.
What are we looking for?
We seek bold ideas that are technically tough, exciting, and unusual – problems with no obvious solution that could attract brilliant, diverse minds from any sector.
What do you get?
By entering our contest, you could help shape the future of UK space innovation. Winners will be featured in a forthcoming issue of SpaceFlight, and win one of three cash prizes.
1st Prize: £325
2nd Prize: £100
3rd Prize: £75
How to enter:
Submit one side of A4 by 23:59BST on Monday 1st September 2025 outlining your prize idea, including:
● The problem/challenge
● An indicative challenge statement
● What the outcomes would be and what the prize would achieve
● The kind of innovators it would attract
For more information about the challenge and how to enter can be found at: challengeworks.org/challenge-prizes/space-contest/
Challenge Works is part of Nesta, the UK’s leading innovation agency, that designs and delivers innovation challenge prizes. In March 2025, Challenge Works completed The Aqualunar Challenge, in which the British Interplanetary Society was a finalist, to develop a water purification system that could process regolith and operate on the lunar surface.