ARLINGTON, Va., March 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The Air Force Association (AFA) announced today the names of the teams invited to the StellarXplorers VI National Finals Competition, to be held April 20-22, 2020. Teams will travel all-expenses paid to Houston, Texas to compete for the National Championship title. These top 10 teams advanced through four competitive qualification rounds, and represent schools and other youth groups from California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Oregon. A full list of the National Finalists can be found here.

“STEM education is a key component of AFA’s mission and our StellarXplorers program plays a central role in attracting students to education and careers in these critical fields that are vital to our nation,” said AFA President, Bruce “Orville” Wright. “The finalists who have made it through the three rounds of competition to make it to the National Finals are truly experts in the field of space system engineering.”

StellarXplorers, The National High School Space Challenge, is a nation-wide, STEM workforce development program. The sixth competition season began in October 2019 with 213 teams registered from 35 states and two overseas locations. Each team consists of two to six students. At this year’s National Finals Competition, teams will compete by defining orbits, spacecraft components, and launch vehicles to meet a set of mission requirements. The teams will also brief an expert panel on their work as a part of their overall score.

“These very talented competitors represent the next generation of the technical workforce we need,” said Stephen K. Gourley, StellarXplorers Program Director. “With the graying and passing of the Apollo-era cadre, the US needs to find and challenge talented students, wherever they are.  We are quite proud of the participants’ demographics, drawn from urban, suburban, and rural populations.”

StellarXplorers, an education initiative established by AFA, is a space system engineering competition designed to inspire students toward futures in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Program sponsors include the U.S. Air Force STEM Program, L3Harris, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Rocket Lab USA, and Space Exploration Technologies, with additional support from the Educational Alliance of Analytical Graphics, Inc, Space Center Houston, and Coyote Enterprises.

To learn more about this program, please visit AFA’s StellarXplorers website www.StellarXplorers.org.

The Air Force Association is a non-profit, independent, professional military and aerospace education association. Our mission is to promote a dominant United States Air Force and a strong national defense, and to honor Airmen and our Air Force Heritage.

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SOURCE Air Force Association