On 22nd June, the BIS hosted the UK selection event for the IAC 2026 Student Paper Competition at HQ, welcoming finalists whose abstracts had already been accepted into the E2 Student Conference at the International Astronautical Congress. After a morning of fifteen‑minute presentations spanning topics from lunar governance and tele‑robotics to CubeSat disturbance modelling, Mars analogue biosignatures and deep‑space trajectory design, the judging panel chose one winner in each category to represent the UK in Antalya.
WINNER: In the undergraduate section, Sarah Abedi‑Boafo won with her feasibility study of material outgassing as a passive nano‑thrust phenomenon in CubeSats, reframing outgassing as a quantifiable nano‑Newton disturbance source rather than merely a contamination concern.
WINNER: The postgraduate prize went to Ahlam Abdi for her investigation of reduction spots in the Littleham Mudstone Formation, a terrestrial analogue aimed at clarifying whether similar features seen by NASA’s Perseverance rover at Jezero Crater are genuine biosignatures or products of abiotic processes.
Both winners receive £500 travel support from the BIS to help them present their work at the IAC 2026 in Antalya, Türkiye, under the Congress theme “The World Needs More Space.”
