Contest Invitation

NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia is inviting students in grades K-12 to draw, paint or design what’s next in science, aeronautics, and exploration in the 2023 NASA Langley Student Art Contest. The contest is open to all children grades K-12 attending public, private, parochial and homeschools who are residents of the United States

Contest Theme and Inspiration

Big things are brewing at NASA. We’re filled with excitement over the launch of uncrewed Artemis 1, the first major step in a series of Artemis missions that will take humans, including, for the first time, a woman, to the Moon and eventually on to Mars. We’re also getting closer and closer to zipping across the sky with the completion of the X-59 QueSST, a passenger aircraft that will zoom from one side of the continent to the other at supersonic speed, but with a sonic “thump” that’s only about as loud as a car door closing. And last, but certainly not least, we’re readying to launch a satellite instrument that will give us critical information about the very air we breathe. Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution, or TEMPO, will collect hourly daytime measurements of air pollution over North America and provide data that could, in the hands of certain decision makers, make everyone breathe a little easier. So with these major innovations in space technology, aeronautics and Earth science in mind, we’re asking you to think big, allow your creativity to bloom and help us imagine “what’s next?”

The following NASA Langley focus areas may provide some additional inspiration: 

• Explore Flight:
• – Enable On-Demand Mobility through integration of vehicle and autonomous systems that are certifiable and improve airspace operations and safety
  – Improve commercial air transport markets through integration and maturation of key aviation and convergent technologies and experimental flight demonstrations.

• Explore Earth:
• – Quantify Earth’s atmospheric composition and radiation budget through research, technology development, flight instrument development, and measurements
  – Develop and deploy lidar remote sensing techniques to precisely capture regional and global
  measurements that aid in science community studies of winds, CO2, clouds, aerosols, and other key atmospheric processes

• Explore Moon to Mars:
• – Design, develop, and demonstrate entry, descent and landing (EDL) systems to enable robotic and human space exploration missions
  – Design, develop, and demonstrate advanced space structures for long-duration deep space human space missions
  – Design, develop, and demonstrate concepts and technologies for autonomous in-space assembly of space structures

The Art Contest submission period begins December 1, 2022 and concludes on December 31, 2022 at midnight EST.

We are asking schools, organizations, and community groups to encourage parents to submit one entry per student.

A grand-prize winner will be selected from all entries and a first place, second place, third place, and honorable mention winner will be selected for each grade level.

For additional information or questions, please email larc-art-contest@mail.nasa.gov.