Mission MushVroom

The Australian Virtual Astronaut Challenge

Ignite your students’ passion for the final frontier with the Australian Virtual Astronaut Challenge. This free national STEM programme invites students in Years 5 to 12 to solve real-world problems facing NASA’s Artemis missions. By tackling critical shortfalls in lunar nutrition, habitat design, and autonomous robotics, participants transform from students into pioneers of the next generation of space exploration.

The 2026 “Home on the Moon” missions are officially open, offering a unique platform for students to have their ideas heard by space industry leaders and venture capitalists. Mission MushVroom is one of the marquee challenges this year, connecting to the private astronaut Fram2 mission that flew mushrooms in 2025.

What is “Mission MushVroom”?

Step into the role of an astronaut, meticulously monitoring this fungal life cycle from spore to fruit, and then taking it one step further: learning to clone the microscopic hyphae to guarantee perpetual life.

Success is creating a sustainable “flywheel” that provides vital Vitamin D, supports the carbon cycle, or perhaps even creates revolutionary new materials. Join us on an interdisciplinary journey to unlock the potential of mycology and determine how a humble mushroom can become the key to extending human life far beyond Earth.

The mission runs in four phases and begins 23 February 2026

Phase	Action	Goal
1	Fruiting and Harvest (Weeks 1-3). Hydrate and monitor a certified substrate block.	Track and measure the entire mycelium lifecycle: pinning, full mushroom development, harvest, and measurement.
2	Tissue Culture (Weeks 4-5). Extract inner tissue from the first harvest and transfer cuttings to agar plates or liquid culture.	Achieve sterile transfer in a controlled environment (laminar flow hood or still air box recommended).
3	Spawn Expansion (Weeks 6-8). Transfer the colonized mycelium (from the agar or liquid culture) to sterilized grains.	Expand the mycelial mass onto a nutrient-dense carrier (grain spawn) to create a vigorous “seed.”
4	Bulk Inoculation (Weeks 9-12). Substrate experimentation and second generation.	Complete the biological loop, enabling students to fruit a second generation (clone) of the original mushroom.