UTSDC was founded by several undergraduate engineering students at the University of Toronto in 2004 and is now entering its seventh year. Each year, the contest challenges students with different topics related to space systems engineering. Students participating in the contest in subsequent years are expected to take these past designs into consideration when designing for the new challenge. The following list contains all previous contest challenges:

• Orbiting space settlement
• Lunar base
• Space hotel
• Space emergency response system
• Space educational facility
• Near Earth Object (NEO) mitigation strategy