Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866913056346341376 |
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| author | Ono, Masahiro Selva, Daniel Cable, Morgan L. Ethvignot, Marie Hansen, Margaret Hein, Andreas M. Lupu, Elena-Sorina Manchester, Zachary Murrow, David Pozarycki, Chad Spino, Pascal Stockton, Amanda Choukroun, Mathieu Chung, Soon-Jo Day, John Demagall, Alexander Freeman, Anthony Gentgen, Chloe Ingham, Michel D. Phillips-Lander, Charity M. Rieber, Richard Salado, Alejandro Sakovsky, Maria Shiraishi, Lori R. Yue, Yisong Zacny, Kris |
| author_facet | Ono, Masahiro Selva, Daniel Cable, Morgan L. Ethvignot, Marie Hansen, Margaret Hein, Andreas M. Lupu, Elena-Sorina Manchester, Zachary Murrow, David Pozarycki, Chad Spino, Pascal Stockton, Amanda Choukroun, Mathieu Chung, Soon-Jo Day, John Demagall, Alexander Freeman, Anthony Gentgen, Chloe Ingham, Michel D. Phillips-Lander, Charity M. Rieber, Richard Salado, Alejandro Sakovsky, Maria Shiraishi, Lori R. Yue, Yisong Zacny, Kris |
| contents | The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in Kuiper Belt objects. NASA's success in Mars exploration was achieved through incrementalism: 22 progressively sophisticated missions over decades. This paradigm, which we call Planetary Exploration 2.0 (PE 2.0), is untenable for the outer Solar System, where cruise times of a decade or more make iterative missions infeasible. We propose Planetary Exploration 3.0 (PE 3.0): a paradigm in which unvisited worlds are explored by a single or a few missions with radically adaptive space systems. A PE 3.0 mission conducts both initial exploratory science and follow-on hypothesis-driven science based on its own in situ data returns, evolving spacecraft capabilities to work resiliently in previously unseen environments. The key enabler of PE 3.0 is software-defined space systems (SDSSs) - systems that can adapt their functions at all levels through software updates. This paper presents findings from a Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) workshop on PE 3.0, covering: (1) PE 3.0 systems engineering including science definition, architecture, design methods, and verification & validation; (2) software-defined space system technologies including reconfigurable hardware, multi-functionality, and modularity; (3) onboard intelligence including autonomous science, navigation, controls, and embodied AI; and (4) three PE 3.0 mission concepts: a Neptune/Triton smart flyby, an ocean world explorer, and an Oort cloud reconnaissance mission. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_20910 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems Ono, Masahiro Selva, Daniel Cable, Morgan L. Ethvignot, Marie Hansen, Margaret Hein, Andreas M. Lupu, Elena-Sorina Manchester, Zachary Murrow, David Pozarycki, Chad Spino, Pascal Stockton, Amanda Choukroun, Mathieu Chung, Soon-Jo Day, John Demagall, Alexander Freeman, Anthony Gentgen, Chloe Ingham, Michel D. Phillips-Lander, Charity M. Rieber, Richard Salado, Alejandro Sakovsky, Maria Shiraishi, Lori R. Yue, Yisong Zacny, Kris Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Artificial Intelligence Robotics Systems and Control The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in Kuiper Belt objects. NASA's success in Mars exploration was achieved through incrementalism: 22 progressively sophisticated missions over decades. This paradigm, which we call Planetary Exploration 2.0 (PE 2.0), is untenable for the outer Solar System, where cruise times of a decade or more make iterative missions infeasible. We propose Planetary Exploration 3.0 (PE 3.0): a paradigm in which unvisited worlds are explored by a single or a few missions with radically adaptive space systems. A PE 3.0 mission conducts both initial exploratory science and follow-on hypothesis-driven science based on its own in situ data returns, evolving spacecraft capabilities to work resiliently in previously unseen environments. The key enabler of PE 3.0 is software-defined space systems (SDSSs) - systems that can adapt their functions at all levels through software updates. This paper presents findings from a Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) workshop on PE 3.0, covering: (1) PE 3.0 systems engineering including science definition, architecture, design methods, and verification & validation; (2) software-defined space system technologies including reconfigurable hardware, multi-functionality, and modularity; (3) onboard intelligence including autonomous science, navigation, controls, and embodied AI; and (4) three PE 3.0 mission concepts: a Neptune/Triton smart flyby, an ocean world explorer, and an Oort cloud reconnaissance mission. |
| title | Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems |
| topic | Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Artificial Intelligence Robotics Systems and Control |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20910 |