A team of Grade 12 students from Central Peel High School in Brampton, Canada, won the grand prize in the 2026 Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest. The team included several students of Indian origin and defeated more than 23,000 students from 31 countries.
Their project, titled Saoirse, proposed a self-sustaining space settlement of 10,000 residents at the Mars-Sun L2 Lagrange point, a stable region in space. The competition, organized by the US-based National Space Society (NSS), is considered one of the most respected student aviation competitions in the world. This win was also the first time a Canadian team had won the grand prize in the competition.
Prestigious Space competition It was won by Brampton High School students
The Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest is an international competition that challenges students to design realistic human settlements in space.
Originally launched in 1994 as the NASA Ames Space Settlement Competition, it is now organized by the National Space Society.Participants are asked to create detailed concepts for future extraterrestrial habitats, covering engineering, artificial gravity, food production, energy systems, economics, governance, transportation, radiation protection and long-term sustainability. Winning entries often resemble professional research proposals rather than regular school projects, with some entries exceeding 100 pages.
The competition is named after physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, whose influential ideas about orbital colonies inspired decades of research into human life in space.
The winning project “Sawiris”
The Brampton students’ project, Saoirse, envisions a large-scale orbital settlement capable of accommodating 10,000 people near Mars-Sun L2. Lagrange points are regions where gravitational forces between two large objects create stable regions that spacecraft and habitats can occupy with relatively low energy requirements.The proposal focused on creating a fully self-sufficient colony with residential areas, agricultural systems, renewable energy infrastructure and rotating habitats designed to generate artificial gravity. Like many of the best entries in the competition, the project combined concepts from physics, engineering, environmental science and social planning.The team’s achievement earned them the competition’s grand prize as well as a $5,000 joint scholarship and an invitation to present their work at an international space development conference.The winning team included Mahiman Patel, Mohammad Rehan Jaffer, Lance Lee, Arumal Maharaj, Rhythm Bhullar, Ved Joshi, Siddhant Vyas, Deep Patel, Arsh Patel, Thanusan Prativkumar and Neil Pathak.The competition attracts thousands of participants each year and is widely respected in aviation education circles. According to official NSS figures, more than 23,000 students participated in the 2026 edition globally, with thousands of submissions assessed by judges.For Canada, the win represents a major milestone in international STEM competitions, with Central Bell High School becoming the first Canadian institution to win the competition’s grand prize.