Open Space Innovation Platform - OSIP - Campaign: ‪Call for Ideas: Autonomous Software Experiments on Hera‬

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Campaign

Ca-2026-00066

Call for Ideas: Autonomous Software Experiments on Hera

Status:

Submission

Status Progression

Submission

6 weeks left

Discussion

Starts Sep 15

Evaluation

Starts Oct 15

Closed

Call for Ideas: Autonomous Software Experiments on Hera

Teaser

Your software could fly millions of kilometres from Earth. ESA is opening the Hera spacecraft to experimental onboard software. Submit your idea and run your algorithms in a real deep-space mission environment.

Ian Carnelli

Jorge Lopez Trescastro

Submit Your Idea

Video

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Description

Hera is about to explore a place humanity has never studied up close before: a binary asteroid system reshaped by human actions. As Europe’s contribution to the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) international collaboration, Hera will rendezvous with Didymos and Dimorphos to reveal, with unprecedented precision, how an asteroid responds to an intentional impact. It will weigh Dimorphos, dissect the crater or reshaping left by DART, and resolve fundamental questions about how asteroids behave—questions that sit at the heart of planetary defence. But Hera’s ambition does not end there. Once its prime mission is complete, the spacecraft enters a bold new phase: becoming a flying laboratory for next-generation onboard intelligence.

During Hera’s Extended Mission Phase, we are opening the spacecraft’s onboard computer to third-party software experiments. This is a rare and powerful opportunity to run your algorithms in deep-space, millions of kilometres from Earth, where communication delays stretch to tens of minutes and ground support cannot be taken for granted. We are inviting innovators to help redefine how spacecraft think, decide, and operate—demonstrating autonomy, edge computing, and resilience in a real mission environment, not a simulation. Your software could decide what matters, extract insight directly from images of an asteroid, or keep the spacecraft productive even when Earth is far away and silent.

This Call for Ideas is an invitation to shape the future of deep-space operations. We are looking for focused, imaginative experiments that push onboard intelligence beyond today’s procedural boundaries—while running safely alongside flight-critical systems in Hera’s protected sandbox environment. If you have an idea that can make spacecraft more independent, more efficient with precious downlink, or more robust in the face of uncertainty, Hera offers a once-in-a-generation testbed. Bring us your best ideas, and help turn a planetary-defence mission into a proving ground for the next era of autonomous space exploration.

Objectives

Deep-space missions are still largely operated through predefined procedures and frequent ground intervention. As missions travel farther from Earth and operational tempos increase, this approach becomes increasingly limiting. ESA therefore invites ideas for onboard software experiments that can demonstrate more capable and autonomous spacecraft operations in a realistic deep-space environment, where communications are intermittent and command and telemetry delays may reach up to 40 minutes.

Hera provides a rare opportunity to validate new onboard software concepts within an operational deep-space mission. This Call aims to develop and demonstrate three capabilities that are becoming essential for future exploration missions:

Autonomy

Demonstrate that the spacecraft can continue progressing towards mission objectives even when immediate ground support is unavailable. Examples include onboard guidance and navigation support, as well as FDIR decision logic capable of selecting actions or data products autonomously despite communication delays.

Edge Computing

Demonstrate useful onboard processing of scientific or operational data, such as asteroid imagery. The objective is to downlink only the most relevant information — for example extracted features, event detections, compressed products, or prioritised datasets — in order to maximise the value of limited communication bandwidth.

Resilience

Demonstrate that innovative and experimental algorithms can safely operate alongside mission-critical flight software without compromising spacecraft safety. This Call focuses on experiments executed on the spacecraft’s second processor core (Core 1), which is designed to operate as a protected sandbox environment.

What Type of Ideas We Are Looking For

We are looking for innovative, well-defined experiments that can run within...