What to know
- A team of 11 Grade 12 students from Central Peel Secondary School won the 2026 Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest, beating more than 29,000 students from 31 countries.
- Their winning project, “Project Saoirse,” explored how humans could build sustainable communities in free space, covering everything from science and engineering to education, economics, and entertainment.
- Teacher and project supervisor Simona Matei said the victory came after four years of persistence, describing the students’ ‘grit, determination, and ambition’ as their true superpower.
- The students earned a $5,000 scholarship and will present their project at the International Space Development Conference 2026 in June, where they’ll speak before scientists, industry leaders, and space start-up CEOs
A team of Grade 12 students from Central Peel Secondary School has won the 2026 Gerard K. O’Neill Space Settlement Contest, marking the first time a Canadian delegation has ever won the prize.
The contest has been hosted annually by the National Space Society (NSS) since 1994, and received over 4,900 entries, with over 29,000 students from 31 different countries participating in 2026. To participate, students must submit projects focused on free space settlement, which must be permanent homes out in space and cannot be rooted in a planet or a moon’s surface.
Simona Matei, head of the mathematics department at the high school and supervisor of the project, told Now Toronto the team had been working towards this goal for four years now.
Four of the team members had already participated in other space contests since Grade 9, while others joined in later years. Since then, they’ve had several close calls for the grand prize, from placing third to receiving an honourable mention, but that was simply not enough for the ambitious students.
According to the teacher, the winning project, named “Project Saoirse” after the Irish word for “freedom,” focused on establishing a free life in space beyond science, including the physical elements necessary to sustain life in space, as well as other human aspects, such as education, economics, and entertainment.
But in her opinion, what really took the project to the next level was the students’ ambition and resilience.
“When you hear, ‘We are the best out of 25,000,’ you [may] think, ‘Oh, my God, these students have some kind of superpowers.’ They do, but you know what that superpower is? Actually, grit, determination, [and] ambition. This is their true superpower, nothing else,” she said.
“They are regular students who work hard, and in the end, hard work pays off.”
Matei said the school has been participating in NSS contests since 2017, after one of her former teachers encouraged her to enrol in the competition. Since then, different students have come close to the prize, with 70 students making the awards list last year alone. But this was the first time a team has, in fact, taken home the big prize.
For the teacher, besides being a remarkable accomplishment, the win is an opportunity to inspire more students to take an interest in science.
“I know winning is nice, and the grand prize is even a bigger accomplishment. However…we are a school of 1,200 students. About 10 per cent of the school population is involved in [this] science project,” she said.
“So, it’s a lot of work that might seem, for many, extremely dry. So, it is very rewarding for me to see such a large part of our school population taking part.”
Since deciding to mentor students through these contests, Matei said she has also made intentional efforts to bring more girls into the projects, emphasizing the importance of inspiring women to have a voice in science.
To foster even more interest, the teacher says she also regularly invites women involved in professional science projects and former students as guest speakers at the school.
“I firmly believe that the women’s voices in STEM are so, so important. And you will see that now we have half of the award winners [who] are girls. How wonderful is that, right?” she said. “That’s work that I am really, really, really proud of.”
A first for Brampton and Canada
In addition to being the first time Central Peel has taken home the win, according to Matei, this is also the first time a Canadian team has ever won the prestigious contest. But she hopes the win will also inspire other schools to join the competition.
Although she was initially enthusiastic about the win, she said the moment was also bittersweet, as she thought about how other Canadian schools could be missing out on participating.
“First of all, [it’s a] responsibility, and then a bit of a feeling of sadness for me that we don’t see these projects tackled by more schools in Canada,” she said.
“I think I wish I could see more students involved in these kinds of competitions, because the value is huge.”
She said that she hopes their win inspires other schools to get involved.
“It’s 2026, [and it] is so important to show all students that there is so much out there to learn and do so,” she explained
“My hope is that our win will encourage other schools to take on that challenge. I’m always happy to mentor other schools and help other students succeed.”
The winning team has earned a $5,000 scholarship that will be split among its 11 members, and has also been invited to attend the International Space Development Conference 2026, which will be held outside Washington, D.C., between June 4–7.
At the conference, students will have to present their project in front of 300 renowned industry members, including established scientists, space enthusiasts, and start-up CEOs.
“Students are welcome, but they are not the main audience, which makes everything even more powerful, and there is more pressure on the students,” Matei said.
“[It’s] a major accomplishment for sure and responsibility because they are obviously the only school in Peel, the only school in Ontario, they are the only Canadian team, so we don’t take that lightly.”
