Reports, Roadmaps, & Plans

Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems

By Keith Cowing

Status Report

astro-ph.IM

April 24, 2026

Filed under anding, astro-ph.IM, Callisto, cartography, Ceres, CSA, desert planet, Encealdus, ESA, Europa, Exploration, flyby, icy world, imaging, JAXA, Kuiper Belt object, Mars, mission, NASA, Planetary Exploration 3.0, rotorcraft, rover, Sample Return, tricorder, UAV, W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies

Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems — Planetary exploration is characterized by unknowns, which are both the primary reason and challenge for exploration. (a) The active nitrogen geysers on Triton, the largest moon of Neptune and likely a captured Kuiper belt object, discovered by Voyager 2. (b) The active geysers on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, which discharge water from the potentially habitable subsurface ocean, discovered by Cassini. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. (c) The heart-shaped Sputnik Planitia on Pluto, discovered by New Horizons, is indicative of ongoing geological activity, a major surprise to planetary scientists. NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI. (d) The unexpectedly rocky surface of Bennu posed a substantial challenge for OSIRIS-REx’s touchdown navigation. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona. (e) InSight’s heat probe mole failed to reach the target depth due to unexpected terrain characteristics. NASA/JPL-Caltech. (f) Perseverance’s first sample coring attempt failed since the rock was unexpectedly brittle, and it crumbled to powder. NASA/JPL-Caltech.

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.

TOP: Planetary Exploration 2.0: Incremental sophistication over many missions, where the behaviors of the space system of each mission are largely pre-designed and fixed based on detailed environmental knowledge brought by prior missions. BOTTOM: Planetary Exploration 3.0 (Proposed): One-shot exploration with a highly adaptive space system, which evolves its behaviors in situ for incrementally complex tasks as it learns more about the environment. — astro-ph.IM

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.

Masahiro Ono, Daniel Selva, Morgan L. Cable, Marie Ethvignot, Margaret Hansen, Andreas M. Hein, Elena-Sorina Lupu, Zachary Manchester, David Murrow, Chad Pozarycki, Pascal Spino, Amanda Stockton, Mathieu Choukroun, Soon-Jo Chung, John Day, Alexander Demagall, Anthony Freeman, Chloe Gentgen, Michel D. Ingham, Charity M. Phillips-Lander, Richard Rieber, Alejandro Salado, Maria Sakovsky, Lori R. Shiraishi, Yisong Yue, Kris Zacny

Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Robotics (cs.RO); Systems and Control (eess.SY)
Cite as: arXiv:2604.20910 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2604.20910v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.20910
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Journal reference: AIAA ASCEND 2026
Submission history
From: Elena Lupu
[v1] Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:22:38 UTC (12,280 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.20910

Astrobiology,

Keith Cowing

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

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