Volunteers will work at a long session of engineering, computer coding and general brainstorming from Friday night through Sunday afternoon. This will take place in the annual International Space Apps Challenge.

This event has been organized for the fourth year. However, it's for the first time that Hampton Roads has participated in it. The event includes people from various fields such as scientists, tech-savvy people, students, educators and engineers and entrepreneurs. They have gathered to develop software, hardware, mobile apps, data visualization and platform solutions to add to space exploration or make life better on Earth.

According to Aazia Mickens-Dessaso, a local organizer of the event and CEO of a local startup called FreePing, "It's a global event where NASA is opening up all of their data and providing a ton of tools for developers in the world who want to help NASA solve mission-related challenges. It's really NASA's way to leverage the community spirit and talent".

She added that there are participants from different fields. The event is open to anyone in the world, and they don't have to be coders to do it, she added. Members of public, who want to watch the event's interesting part, can also come.

Peninsula Technology Incubator (PTI) at the National Institute of Aerospace at 1100 Exploration Way in Hampton is hosting the event. It is near the NASA Langley Research Center, which is the local sponsor of NASA.

According to Deborah Diaz, chief technology officer at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, the event is a chance for citizen scientists throughout the world, in which they can work together and contribute to space exploration.