About

The NASA High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) program is a year-long STEM experience for Texas high school juniors, administered by NASA's Office of STEM Engagement at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The program is free throughout and open to Texas juniors who are U.S. citizens — no other students are eligible due to funding restrictions.

HAS runs in two phases. The first is a five-month online curriculum (October 2025–March 2026) covering space exploration, Earth science, technology, and aeronautics, with integrated engineering design challenges held both virtually and in-person on Saturday mornings. Students develop skills in coding, computer-aided design, and engineering through four sequential modules. The highest-performing students from the online phase earn an invitation to Moonshot, a five-day virtual summer experience in which teams of scholars work on NASA mission design challenges — including planning Artemis-themed missions to the Moon and Mars — mentored by NASA scientists and engineers. The top-performing teams from Moonshot are then invited to an all-expenses-paid, multi-day residential experience at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where students tour facilities, build rockets, and present their work to NASA personnel.

The program is not highly selective at the application stage — the primary filter is performance during the online curriculum. Applications for the 2025–2026 cycle opened in August 2025 with a September 24 deadline; applications for the 2026–2027 cycle are expected to open in August 2026.

Nearly 30 HAS alumni have been hired by NASA in the past five years, reflecting the program's genuine pipeline function into the aerospace workforce. For a Texas junior with serious interest in STEM and space exploration, HAS offers an unusually structured and consequential pathway — with the JSC residential experience offering a rare and compelling opportunity for high school students to interact with an active NASA facility.