NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has partnered with the National Space Club & Foundation to offer a six-week program for high school students within a 50 mile radius of Goddard in Greenbelt, MD, or NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, VA. The Space Club Scholars program provides students an in-person learning experience at NASA. 

Program Eligibility: 

To be eligible for this program, students must meet the following criteria: 

• At time of application, enrolled in grade 10, 11, or 12 and in good standing; Must have completed Sophomore year (10th grade) in high school by the starting date of the program;  

• Must be 16 years of age by the starting date of the program; 

• Must be a U.S. citizen; 

• Must live and maintain a permanent residence within commuting distance (50 miles) of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, or NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA. 

• Minimum 3.0 GPA (unweighted) on a 4.0 scale 

Program Dates: 

Participants will be required to work onsite (Greenbelt, MD or Wallops Island, VA) from June 29 through August 7. The program requires students to work on their projects five (5) days per week for six (6) weeks. Apart from the federal holiday, Independence Day (July 3, 2026), time off will not be granted during program.  

How to Apply: 

1. Applicants that are 16 years old should submit an application in Gateway. You can apply to multiple projects. Check back often, projects will be added until the end of February. 
2. Upload your transcript to the application. 
3. Enter your resume information into the application. 

Only applications with all of this information are complete. The application deadline is April 17, 11:59 p.m. EST. 

Important Note:

The Space Club Scholars program is open to students who are 16 by the start of the program on June 30, 2025. Due to a system limitation, students who are 15 at time of application are restricted from submitting applications. 

If you are 15 but will turn 16 before the application deadline, April 17, 11:59 p.m., you should wait to apply to each project until you turn 16.  

Summer 2026 Projects: 

Greenbelt, MD location:

• Downstream task development and evaluation for a foundation model
• Public and Internal Engagement Specialist
• Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON) Series 1 Mission Elements RFI Readiness Assessment
• Development of Software Platform for Ground Software Development Training
• Core Flight System Training Refinement
• Test Software Development
• Venusian atmospheric entry probe inertial sensor cluster characterization and calibration
• Simulation Environment for Mobile Robots
• Optical Navigation Sensor Hardware and Software Development
• LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna)
• In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing Robotics
• Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer Calibration Support
• Pen-Ray Lamp Radiometric Repeatability and Performance Evaluation
• Analysis and investigation of the Unified Aerosol Algorithm aerosol products derived from the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) on NASA’s PACE satellite.
• Critical Evaluation of Dark Target Aerosol Products Across Multi-Sensor GEO–LEO Observations
• AI-Aided Wildfire Sensing from Drones
• Statistical Analysis of Magnetotail Dipolarization Events from the MMS Mission
• Temporal and Spatial Statistics of Pulsating Auroras: Implications for Magnetosphere Ionosphere Coupling

Wallops Island, VA location:

• WFF Range Ground Operations Internship

Contact: 

For more information about the Space Club Scholars program, contact the coordinator, Jeremy Davis, jdavis@spaceclub.org, or visit: https://www.spaceclub.org/education/scholars.html