Team Interplanetar (BUET)

Team Interplanetar reached the URC finals twice, finishing 23^rd of 26 in 2022 and 27^th of 31 in 2023, with zero in Equipment Servicing and zero in Autonomy in both years. Science and the SAR supplied almost the whole score. The team competes widely at the European Rover Challenge, the Anatolian Rover Challenge, IRDC and IPAS and reports its results, but publishes almost nothing about the rover itself.

Identity and results

Team Interplanetar is based at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka. It appears in the 2022 and 2023 URC score sheets and in no team list after that S-URC22-SCORES S-URC23-SCORES S-URC24-TEAMS S-URC25-TEAMS S-URC26-TEAMS. Tier C is the census label for two finals; the tier rule is defined on the census page.

The team’s own history reaches further back: it lists the URC in 2016, 2021, 2022 and 2023, with a fifth place in the Phobos group at the 2016 event S-INTERP-ERC25. Founding date is less clear. Two team pages give 2011 and 2013 S-INTERP-SITE S-INTERP-ERC22, so this page treats the founding as early in the 2010s rather than choosing one date silently.

Rover generations

Renaissance (European Rover Challenge 2022). The rover registered for the 2022 European Rover Challenge, with a 40-member on-site team S-INTERP-ERC22.

Prochesta V4.0 (European Rover Challenge 2024–2025). The machine named in the 2025 European Rover Challenge profile, with a 55-member team S-INTERP-ERC25.

The URC rovers. No name is published for either URC finals rover. Whether Renaissance or Prochesta went to the URC is not stated, so the URC machines cannot be matched to the named European Rover Challenge machines.

Subsystems

Mobility. No chassis, suspension, wheel or motor detail is published. The team describes a “full-fledged rover” for “rough Martian terrain” S-INTERP-SITE.

Arm and end-effectors. No description exists. The score evidence is Equipment Servicing 0 in 2022 and 0 in 2023 S-URC22-SCORES S-URC23-SCORES.

Science. No instrument, assay or sample path is published. Science was 70 in 2022 and 54.81 in 2023, the strongest mission in both years S-URC22-SCORES S-URC23-SCORES.

Delivery and autonomy. Delivery scored 5 and then 10; autonomy scored 0 and then 0 S-URC22-SCORES S-URC23-SCORES. No delivery mechanism or navigation stack is described.

Power, communications and compute. Nothing is published. No public repository contains rover code; the single public repository is the team website, last pushed in December 2019 S-INTERP-GH.

Mission performance

2022, 23^rd of 26 with 163.67. Science 70 and the SAR at 88.67 accounted for 158.67 of the total; delivery added 5, and equipment and autonomy added nothing S-URC22-SCORES.

2023, 27^th of 31 with 151.62. Science fell to 54.81, delivery rose to 10, and the two zeros stayed S-URC23-SCORES. The rank fell four places in a field that had grown by five teams, so the team lost ground both absolutely and relatively.

2024–2026, absent from the URC. No URC row, while the team finished 23^rd on-site at the European Rover Challenge 2024 and qualified as second seed at the Anatolian Rover Challenge 2024 S-INTERP-SITE.

The pattern across competitions is consistent: seed qualification and remote-format results are strong, and on-site scored missions at the URC are not.

Lessons for a first build

• Two zero missions cap the total. A team can score well in science and still finish near the bottom if manipulation and autonomy produce nothing. The 2023 total was 151.62, with 54.81 from science alone.
• A wide portfolio is not depth. Seven competitions with a team of 40 to 55 members spreads effort, and the URC missions that need sustained integration stayed at zero.
• Report the score plainly. The team’s site states its 27^th place at the URC 2023 plainly. That honesty is why this page has any facts, and it is the habit a first build should copy.
• Match named rovers to seasons. Two named European Rover Challenge machines cannot be tied to either URC finals rover. A public build log with a date and a name per season is cheap insurance.
• Do not let a science strength hide a manipulator gap. The arm is the subsystem a servicing mission tests end to end, and no public source describes it.

What remains uncertain

Why the URC stopped after 2023 while the European Rover Challenge and the Anatolian Rover Challenge continued is not stated. The arm and the autonomy stack are unknown; nothing has been published in a decade of competition. The founding year is given as 2011 on the site and 2013 in the European Rover Challenge profile. The names of the 2022 and 2023 URC rovers are not published. Mass, dimensions, motors, battery, radio and on-board computer are all unpublished.

Team sources

• buetinterplanetar.com, the team site with the achievements panel.
• European Rover Challenge 2022 profile, rover Renaissance, 40 members and 494/1100 on-site.
• European Rover Challenge 2025 profile, rover Prochesta V4.0, 55 members and the competition history.
• buet-interplanetar on GitHub, the one public repository, last pushed in December 2019.