Higher Orbits Receives National Challenger-7 Recognition for Inspiring the Next Generation of STEM Leaders
National honor recognizes Higher Orbits’ decade of using space exploration to inspire students through STEM, teamwork, leadership, and hands-on learning
August 2026, Higher Orbits Galactic HQ — Higher Orbits has been honored with Challenger Center’s prestigious Challenger-7 Recognition, a national honor celebrating organizations whose work reflects the spirit, vision, and values of the Space Shuttle Challenger 51-L crew.
Created as part of Challenger Center’s 40th Anniversary, the Challenger-7 Recognition honors organizations that embody the Challenger crew’s commitment to exploration, learning, and inspiration while advancing opportunities for future generations to pursue STEM education and careers.
Higher Orbits is being recognized for its longstanding commitment to inspiring students through space exploration and experiential STEM education. For the past decade, the organization’s flagship Go For Launch! program has connected students in grades 8–12 with astronauts, scientists, engineers, and space industry professionals through immersive, hands-on experiences that develop STEM skills alongside teamwork, communication, leadership, critical thinking, and problem-solving.
The award was presented to Michelle Lucas, Higher Orbits’ Founder & CEO by former NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence and the Challenger Learning Center of Colorado team.
“Receiving the Challenger-7 Recognition is an extraordinary honor for Higher Orbits and for everyone who has helped make Go For Launch! possible,” said Michelle Lucas, Founder and CEO of Higher Orbits. “The Challenger crew believed deeply in exploration, learning, and inspiring the next generation. Those same values are at the heart of everything we do. Every time a student designs an experiment, works alongside an astronaut, asks a new question, or discovers that they belong in STEM, we see that legacy moving forward. We are incredibly grateful to Challenger Center for recognizing our students, alumni, volunteers, educators, astronauts, partners, and supporters who have helped us carry that mission forward.”
The recognition comes during a milestone year for Higher Orbits. In 2026, the organization is celebrating 10 years of Go For Launch! and surpassed 100 Go For Launch! events, marking a decade of engaging students across the country through space-based STEM education and experiential learning.
Since its founding, Higher Orbits has built its programs around a simple premise: space exploration can be the launchpad for much more than a career in aerospace. By placing students in authentic, collaborative challenges and giving them access to professionals who are actively shaping the future of space exploration, Higher Orbits helps young people develop the confidence and skills to imagine and pursue their own futures.
“Higher Orbits has spent the past decade inspiring students to engage with STEM,” says Mike Kincaid, Executive Director and President of Challenger Center. “Their events—with their hands-on activities and astronaut guests—offer a unique experience to students in their own backyard. Higher Orbits is helping to make space science accessible to kids across the country, and we’re proud to recognize them as a Challenger-7 honoree.”
The Challenger-7 Recognition is particularly meaningful to Higher Orbits because its programs seek to ensure that the wonder of space exploration is accessible to the next generation.
Through Go For Launch!, students work alongside astronauts and STEM professionals, develop experiment concepts, collaborate as teams, and present their ideas to judges from the space and STEM communities. Winning experiments may ultimately fly to the International Space Station or on a suborbital flight, giving students the opportunity to contribute to real-world research.
“This recognition belongs to our students,” Lucas said. “They are the reason we launch. Their curiosity, creativity, determination, and willingness to ask ‘what if?’ remind us every day why it is so important to invest in the next generation. We are honored to carry forward the spirit of Challenger and to help students discover that their dreams can be much bigger than they ever imagined.”
Higher Orbits extends its gratitude to Challenger Center for the recognition and to the astronauts, educators, volunteers, sponsors, partners, alumni, families, and communities who have made a decade of Go For Launch! possible.
About Higher Orbits
Founded in 2015, Higher Orbits is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization creating an experiential learning lab for secondary school students across the United States, focused on the multifaceted worlds of space exploration, research, and spaceflight in order to launch the next generation workforce. Find out more at www.higherorbits.org/
Press Contact: Alice Carruth, COO, Higher Orbits
(575) 639-1113
