The tenth anniversary European Rover Challenge (ERC) will take place in Krakow on 6-8 September 2024. The International Martian Robot Competition will be hosted by the AGH University of Science and Technology (AGH) in Krakow. The competition is organised by the European Space Foundation.

The ERC is a prestigious international space and robotics event that has been held in Poland for 10 years. It is a combination of the recognised Martian robot competition with the participation of the best academic teams from all over the world, an industry conference and a science and technology demonstration zone.

The competitions in the ERC competition faithfully replicate the challenges faced by rovers currently on Mars and the Moon. The European Rover Challenge, also known as the ‘Martian Rover Competition’, gives student teams a chance to present their skills and creativity not only to a wide audience, but also to representatives of global space agencies (such as NASA, ESA, EUSPA, DLR, CNES or POLSA) and industry experts who, at the invitation of the organisers, visit the event and share their knowledge and experience.

The ERC competition is held on a special Martian track. It is a unique installation, designed by planetary geologists from the Polish Academy of Sciences, inspired by a selected part of the Red Planet. Active volcanoes, impact craters, lava channels, traces of water activity – these are just some of the possible elements of the track. Marsyard has attracted the attention of scientists from all over the world because of its faithful reproduction of Martian geological processes.

The main task in the ERC is to design and build a Martian rover that will perform the competition’s competitions with the greatest precision.

Students from the world’s best technical universities form teams in which they design unique Martian rover constructions. The finalists of the competition demonstrate the capabilities of their robot on a special Martian track (Marsyard) in several competitions based on real space agency missions, inspired by real NASA and ESA space missions.

Adrian Andrzejewski