UPIITA Triumphs at the International Space Games 2026

Reporter: Adda Avendaño / Photos: Courtesy of UPIITA

In Russia, Polytechnic students and researchers secured two major category wins after completing a simulated crewed mission to Mars under extreme analog conditions.

Innovation, teamwork, and Mexican scientific talent were on full display at the International Space Games 2026, where the Mexican delegation, led by the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), won in two of the five competition categories and received an additional team distinction.

Coordinated by the IPN through the Interdisciplinary Professional Unit of Engineering and Advanced Technologies (Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria en Ingeniería y Tecnologías Avanzadas, UPIITA), the Mexican delegation included Polytechnic researchers and students, as well as teams from Tecmilenio University (Toluca Campus), the Autonomous University of Nuevo León (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, UANL), and the Moscow Aviation Institute. Together, they carried out complex engineering tasks under conditions of extreme isolation.

Among the awards earned by the Mexican team was Best Flight Engineer, presented to July, a graduate of Tecmilenio High School. The Best Mission Control Center (MCC) award went to the operational team led by Samantha Desireé Vázquez.

In addition, the entire Mexican delegation received special recognition for its communications performance during the international competition in Russia, which simulated a crewed expedition to the Red Planet.

The inaugural International Space Games were organized by the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University) in Moscow, with support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation and the State Space Corporation Roscosmos.

During the closing ceremony, held at the Skolkovo Innovation Center in Moscow, organizers highlighted the achievements of the eight participating international teams in addressing real-world engineering challenges involving robotics, artificial intelligence, and life-support operations in simulated extraterrestrial habitats.

Held from October 26 to November 1, the competition recreated a crewed mission to Mars using the Angara and Volga analog stations. Delegations from Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico faced rigorous evaluations in life-support systems, robotics, power grid stability, telemetry, space data analysis, biology, environmental monitoring, and space medicine.

Each delegation fielded a team of 10 participants, aged 18 to 27, assigned to specialized operational roles: flight engineers, control systems specialists, field researchers, communications officers, science communicators, Mission Control Center operators, and remote laboratory support personnel.

The Mexican delegation organized its team as follows: five crew members remained in complete isolation inside the simulator dome, operating the analog Martian colony under severe energy, robotics, and life-support constraints. The remaining members were divided into two groups: two Mission Control Center operators, who coordinated operations from university facilities in Moscow, and three technical support specialists.

Meanwhile, the crews inside the simulated habitats were evaluated by an international jury through scientific experiments involving space exploration, planetary geology, automation, closed-loop environmental systems, and space medicine.

Representing Polytechnic innovation, the team presented SENTINEL, a proprietary technology developed by the Emerging Technologies Laboratory within UPIITA's Postgraduate Studies and Research Section (Sección de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación, SEPI). Led by Professor and Researcher Noé Sierra Romero, SENTINEL monitors crew members' physical and emotional stress, biometric data, and psychological well-being during extended periods of isolation.

The platform combines non-invasive biometric sensors, an AI-powered voice chatbot, and computer vision algorithms designed to analyze facial expressions and behavioral changes. As part of the competition protocol, the experiment was assigned to the crew of another delegation, demonstrating its functionality through remote operation and guidance from the Mexican technical team.

Dr. Sierra Romero explained that SENTINEL aims to advance research into the physiological and psychological effects of long-duration isolation by integrating data from multiple sources for real-time assessment by space medicine specialists.