Monash Nova Rover achieves best-ever result at global Mars Challenge

Monash University students have achieved a historic result on the world stage, placing second overall out of 116 teams from 18 countries at the 2026 University Rover Challenge (URC) in Utah, USA.

Competing at the renowned Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville from 27–30 May, the team delivered its strongest-ever performance, earning a final score of 412.41 points, the highest score achieved by the team in URC history.

The student team also secured a perfect 100-point score in the Science Task and achieved the highest Autonomous Task score of the entire competition with 86 points, demonstrating exceptional capability in robotics, autonomy and planetary exploration technologies.

Widely regarded as the world's premier robotics competition for university students, the University Rover Challenge challenges teams to design, build and operate the next generation of Mars rovers capable of supporting future astronaut missions on the Red Planet.

This outstanding achievement reflects the ingenuity, technical excellence and determination of our students, who competed against some of the world's most talented emerging engineers and roboticists.

Congratulations to Dr Keenan Granland, Joseph Hartono, Luke Bouwmeester, Chetan Edupalli, James Pettifer, Kevin Binu, Zachary Warton, Will Middlewick, Timothy Hes and team on an extraordinary result, and for showcasing Monash Engineering innovation on the global stage.

See the final teams and scores here.