BRG Steyr wins CanSat Austria Competition

The final of the eighth CanSat Austria competition in Linz and Suben has been decided: After twelve teams from nine schools across Austria developed their can-sized satellites (known as CanSats), they demonstrated their functionality at the Suben-Schärding airfield last Friday, April 24, 2025. A rocket from the TU Space team carried the mini-satellites to an altitude of 685 meters, where they collected data such as temperature, air pressure, actual ejection altitude, and fall speed during their descent. The team Basecamp Zero from BRG Steyr Michaelerplatz won the first prize. The high school students built a CanSat that not only takes highly accurate measurements, but also acts as an active air filter to clean the atmosphere. Florian Hochstöger, Moritz Mayrhofer and Michaela Rametsteiner won a trip to ESA’s “Space Engineer for a Day” event at the ESTEC space research center in the Netherlands.

The jury also awarded prizes to BRG Oberpullendorf for its Pollution Mapping Project (“Best Technical Performance”) and the CanLander team from HTL Rennweg (“Best Public Relations”). The Austrian CanSat competition is organized and carried out by ESERO Austria (European Space Education Resource Office), an ESA initiative that has been based at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz since 2016.

“The topics of space and space travel are increasingly becoming the focus of public attention. And rightly so, because in addition to the enormous increase in knowledge made possible by space missions, the field of space technology also has enormous growth potential in Austria and therefore plays an important role in securing Austria’s position and competitiveness. I am particularly pleased about the high level of innovation among our young people. I would like to congratulate the Basecamp Zero team on winning the Austrian CanSat Championship 2025. Successes like this show that the future of our country lies in the hands of creative, committed young people. Their innovative spirit and passion are the fuel for tomorrow’s technologies.“

Space Minister Peter Hanke.

„With the CanSat competition, we invite students from the age of 14 each year to immerse themselves in the world of space and to design all phases of a real space project themselves. Despite adverse weather conditions, we were able to welcome around 200 participants and interested visitors to the airfield in Suben, where we launched the rocket with the CanSats.“

Bettina Anderl, ESERO Austria Managerin

About ESERO Austria

On behalf of the European Space Agency ESA, ESERO (European Space Education Resource Office) supports teachers in using the fascination of space to inspire young people for STEM subjects. Since 2016, ESERO Austria has been active at the Ars Electronica Center Linz on behalf of ESA and the FFG/BMIMI. In addition to competitions for students and teaching materials, ESERO also offers in-service training for teachers.