Introduction
This workshop brings together global leaders and rising experts in space robots and systems to address the challenges and opportunities of off-world autonomy. To date, more robots than people have lived and worked in space, underscoring their vital role in humanity's quest to understand, explore, and develop the universe. With global access to space rapidly expanding, new opportunities are emerging in on-orbit servicing, planetary exploration, lunar activities, resource prospecting, remote sensing, and human habitation. At the same time, advances in perception, manipulation, locomotion, mapping, and navigation for robots on Earth are accelerating the readiness of autonomy for deployment in space.
Robots are often the scouts of humanity—able to reach the most distant and hazardous regions of space—and will be essential partners in enabling humans to live and work beyond Earth. This workshop will highlight cutting-edge research and foster bold discussions on how robotics can extend human reach, open new frontiers, and help realize our long-term aspiration of exploring the universe ourselves.
Call for Papers / Demos
We welcome submissions on space autonomy, planetary exploration, orbital robotics, earth observation, novel space hardware, and space systems. Research questions that we would like to explore are:
- What new space applications become possible through the adoption of unconventional robot morphologies such as soft and deployable designs?
- How can emerging sensing technologies and fusion methods improve perception in space robotics and expand the range of feasible applications?
- What methods should we use for estimation for space robotics, including new localization and navigation algorithms?
- How might new simulation tools, foundation models, and scene representations be applied to advance space autonomy?
- What models and architectures are best suited for Earth observation and geospatial AI?
- What unique challenges or bottlenecks exist for autonomous space robotics (data scarcity, onboard compute, environmental, edge cases), and what steps can we take as a community to improve them?
Submission Guidelines
The workshop will invite extended abstracts of up to 3 pages (excluding references, acknowledgments, and limitations), formatted in the IEEE conference template and submitted via OpenReview. Submissions will be reviewed in a double-blind process by workshop organizers and attendees. Each submission must nominate one reviewer to evaluate one other contribution, following a reciprocal review model. Reviewer assignments will use OpenReview's assignment system, optimizing objectives such as semantic relevance and conflict of interest detection. Accepted abstracts will be published on the workshop website and presented as posters. All accepted works will also be invited for spotlight presentations. We encourage submissions of in-progress work and extensions of previously published material; originality is welcome but not required.
Submission PortalTimeline
- Submission Portal Opens: Feb 1, 2026
- Submission Deadline: Apr 3, 2026 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere On Earth)
- Notification of Acceptance: Apr 27, 2026*
- Camera-Ready Deadline: May 8, 2026 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere On Earth)
- Spotlight Presentations and Poster Design deadline: May 18, 2026 11:59 p.m. (Anywhere On Earth)
- Workshop Date: Jun 5, 2026
*If you are expecting longer visa processing timeline due to your home country, please email the workshop organizers to discuss an expedited review timeline.
Workshop Schedule
| Time (Local) | Event |
|---|---|
| 08:30 - 08:45 | Opening Remarks |
| 08:45 - 09:15 | Speaker 1 |
| 09:15 - 10:00 | Spotlight Session 1 + Poster Overview |
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Coffee Break + Poster Session 1 |
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Speaker 2 |
| 11:30 - 12:00 | Speaker 3 |
| 12:00 - 12:30 | Speaker 4 |
| 12:30 - 13:30 | Lunch Break |
| 13:30 - 13:45 | Introduction to the Afternoon Session |
| 13:45 - 14:15 | Speaker 5 |
| 14:15 - 15:00 | Spotlight Session 2 + Poster Overview |
| 15:00 - 16:00 | Coffee Break + Poster Session 2 |
| 16:00 - 16:30 | Speaker 6 |
| 16:30 - 17:15 | Panel Discussion / Round Table + Pizza Party |
| 17:15 - 17:30 | Closing Remarks |
Organizers
-
Holly Dinkel
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
-
Julia Di
Lockheed Martin Space Advanced Technology Center
-
Su-Yeon Choi
Republic of Korea Army Research Center
-
David Rodríguez-Martínez
University of Málaga
-
Carol Martinez
University of Luxembourg
-
Keenan Albee
University of Southern California
-
Yasmin Ansari
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
-
Lennart Puck
ESA
-
Hiro Ono
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
-
Abhishek Cauligi
Johns Hopkins University
Location
Conference Venue: ICRA 2026 • City: Vienna, Austria • Room: TBD
Poster Stand Numbers: TBD • Please check onsite signage for details.
Organizational Support Committee
Thank you to our organizational support committee members Lennart Puck and Ignacio López-Francos for helping publicize and source high-quality reviews.
Contact
For questions and comments, please contact the organizers: space-robotics-workshop@googlegroups.com