📌About the Event

The AirLeap CanSat Challenge 2026–27 is a school-level satellite engineering competition for students in Classes 8–12 from Bihar and Jharkhand. Participants work in teams to design and build a functional CanSat—a satellite roughly the size of a soft-drink can—capable of collecting and transmitting live flight data. During the offline stages, the CanSat is released from a G-Vayu drone, deploys its parachute, transmits telemetry to a student-built ground station, and must land safely. The competition combines electronics, programming, aerospace engineering, telemetry, parachute design, teamwork, and real-world engineering reviews.

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ℹ️ Event Details

• Region: Open primarily to school teams from Bihar and Jharkhand.
• Team Size: 5 or 6 students with one teacher mentor.
• Mode of Conduct: Hybrid – the initial design and testing rounds are conducted online, while the final deployment stages are offline.
• Online Stages: Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, and District Deploy Test.
• Offline Stages: Division Readiness Test followed by the Grand Finale in Patna.
• Junior CanSats are released from approximately 60–80 metres, while Senior teams face a 120-metre release.
• The CanSat must descend using a parachute at approximately 5–8 metres per second and transmit telemetry once every second.
• Required telemetry includes altitude, atmospheric pressure, temperature, battery voltage, acceleration, and flight state.

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📅 Important Dates

• Registration Deadline: 25 October 2026.
• Preliminary Design Review (PDR): By 5 November 2026; conducted online on a rolling basis.
• Critical Design Review (CDR): 18 November 2026.
• CDR Results: 21 November 2026.
• District Deploy Test: 5–8 December 2026, conducted online through a supervised video test.
• Division Readiness Test: 19–21 December 2026, conducted offline.
• Grand Finale: 11 January 2027 in Patna.

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🎯 Eligibility & Rules

• Eligibilty:
• Students studying in Classes 8–12 can participate.
• Junior Category: Classes 8–10.
• Senior Category: Classes 11–12.
• Each team must consist of 5–6 students and one teacher mentor.
• Teams must generally have at least 35% girl participation:- At least 2 girls in a five-member team.
• At least 3 girls in a six-member team.
• Boys-only schools may request special permission. AirLeap
• Schools are recommended to enter no more than five teams.
• Independent teams can also participate outside a school, subject to the applicable independent-team entry fee. AirLeap
• Ready-made CanSat kits are prohibited. Teams must select and assemble their own components.
• Junior teams have a ₹15,000 hardware budget cap, while Senior teams have a ₹25,000 hardware budget cap.

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🏆 Benefits for the Participants

• he official competition page currently emphasizes training, mentorship, and technical opportunities rather than a publicly announced cash prize pool.
• Top 10 teams: Training for national and international satellite-building competitions.
• Top 30 teams: Continued mentorship in space technology.
• Top 50 teams: Opportunity to participate in a drone-making workshop.
• All participating teams: Written feedback on their Preliminary Design Review.
• Teams receive access to mentor office hours until the Critical Design Review.
• Teams qualifying beyond the CDR receive an assigned mentor. AirLeap
• Season I is mentored by Dr. Hashima Hasan, Deputy Program Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA, while Prof. Vinay Kumar of the Central University of Jammu is listed as Mentor and Guest of Honour for the finale.