Space Robotics Workshop 2025

The 2nd Space Robotics Workshop (SRW) will be held in conjunction with the IEEE SMC-IT/SCC from July 28th to 29th 2025, at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, CA. The workshop will bring together experts in robotics, autonomy, AI, and aerospace to shape the next era of innovation driving our return to the Moon, the sustainable exploration of Mars and beyond, and the expansion of commercial activity beyond Earth orbit.

As national space agencies and commercial ventures capitalize on next-generation robotics, we stand at a critical juncture. Increasing mission complexity, evolving space architectures, expanding commercial services, and the rapid progress in AI present both unprecedented opportunities and new challenges in how we explore, operate, and build a sustainable space economy. Rapid advances in terrestrial robotics are directly influencing the development of space robotics and are poised to play a central role in enabling more autonomous, resilient, and ambitious missions, while also laying the groundwork for future off-world economic activities.

Building on the foundation laid during our inaugural event, this year’s workshop will focus on the recent breakthroughs in the field of robotics, the current state of space robotics, the rise of the commercial space sector supporting the lunar economy, and emerging concepts aimed at enabling more capable, adaptable, and cost-effective missions.

The program will be organized around a set of focused technical sessions, with keynote talks, spotlight presentations, panels, and a poster session.

Tentative Agenda

Call for Papers to the 2nd Space Robotics Workshop

We invite submissions on research and development at the intersection of robotics, autonomy, and space applications for the 2nd Space Robotics Workshop, which will be held in conjunction with the IEEE SMC-IT/SCC from July 28th to 29th 2025, at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, CA. Contributions should highlight innovative methods, systems, and technologies for exploration, in-space services, or science operations beyond Earth.

Relevant topics:

• Autonomous navigation and mobility for planetary and orbital environments, including terrain-relative localization, path planning, and novel locomotion systems (e.g., rovers, drones, subsurface robots).
• Manipulation in space and planetary environments, including dexterous handling, microgravity operations, and contact dynamics in ISAM or EVA contexts.
• In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) and In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) enabled by robotic autonomy.
• AI agents for perception, decision-making, task planning, and multi-robot coordination in space environments.
• Foundation models and multimodal learning (vision-language-action) for general-purpose space robotic systems.
• Photogrammetry, Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs), 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS), and other volumetric representation techniques for environment modeling and scene understanding, particularly under challenging illumination conditions.
• Human-robot teaming strategies for crewed and uncrewed missions, including shared autonomy, intent recognition, and adaptive interfaces.
• Sim-to-real transfer, domain adaptation, and policy generalization for space-deployed systems.
• High-fidelity simulation and digital twins for development, integration, testing, and mission rehearsal.
• Long-duration autonomy and adaptive learning in unstructured, dynamic, or high-latency environments.
• Autonomous surface operations, including science-driven exploration, sample collection, and real-time decision-making under resource constraints.
• Spacecraft swarms and distributed robotic systems, including satellite formation flying, multi-agent planning, and inter-agent communication.
• Space logistics, infrastructure deployment, and robotic construction, supporting scalable off-world operations.
• System integration, testing, and field validation of space robotic platforms in analog or operational environments.
• Mission concepts, technology demonstrations, and commercial initiatives accelerating the adoption of space robotics.
• Trust, verification, and validation frameworks to ensure robust, explainable, and resilient autonomous behavior.

Submission Guidelines

• Full papers can be up to 10 pages, not including references. Paper templates are available here: IEEE Templates.
• Submissions must be made through the EasyChair portal. Please select the “Space Robotics Workshop” track.
• Authors may choose between two submission options:
  • Archival Track (IEEE Proceedings): Papers will be included in the official IEEE conference proceedings (indexed in IEEE Xplore). Submission Deadline: May 23rd
  • Non-Archival Track: For authors who wish to present without publication, preserving eligibility for future archival venues. Submission Deadline: June 6th.
• Papers selected for IEEE publication must be presented in person to comply with IEEE’s “Podium and Publish” policy.
• Authors who opt out of IEEE publication may still present at the workshop and are encouraged to contribute to discussions and community-building.
• All submissions will be peer reviewed for quality and relevance.
• At least one author of each accepted paper must register for IEEE SMC-IT/SCC with an in-person registration and attend the workshop.
• All accepted papers will be presented as posters during the workshop. A select number of top submissions will be invited for spotlight presentations, based on reviewer feedback and program needs.
• Selected papers may be invited to appear in a special issue of a journal. More details will be shared later.

Important Dates

For any questions, please feel free to reach out to:
✉️ ignacio.lopez-francos@nasa.gov
✉️ marcel.kaufmann@jpl.nasa.gov

The 2025 Space Robotics Workshop is supported by a Scientific Committee composed of leading experts across academia, industry, and government, who help ensure the quality, relevance, and impact of the program.

Scientific Committee Members