BYU Mars Rover Team Places 4th in 2025 University Rover Challenge

The BYU Mars Rover team competed in the 2025 University Rover Challenge held May 28-31, 2025, at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah. They placed 4th overall, competing against top university teams from around the world! The BYU team took 1st place in the Autonomy Challenge category and 3rd place in the Equipment Servicing category. Congratulations to this year’s team for their incredible success!

The University Rover Challenge (URC) is a premier robotics competition for college students. Held annually in the desert of southern Utah, URC challenges student teams to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one day work alongside astronauts exploring the Red Planet.

The BYU Mars Rover Team includes students from multiple disciplines including mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering, computer science, and geology — each bringing crucial expertise to the table.

This year’s rover featured lots of design updates, including an updated antenna system, a redesigned elevator mechanism, an augmented science analysis module, and a major ROS 2 codebase overhaul.

We’re incredibly proud of this team and excited to see how future rovers build on this momentum.

Participants at the 2025 University Rover Challenge (URC) held May 28-31, 2025, at the Mars Desert Research Station.

BYU Mars Rover Team’s rover competes in the 2025 University Rover Challenge, placing 4th overall.