The multiyear flight demonstration of FAME is expected to begin with an initial set of six spacecraft this summer.
Irish space-tech start-up Ubotica will offer its onboard AI systems in partnering with NASA on a mission to demonstrate autonomous intelligent satellite networks.
The ‘flight demonstration of federated autonomous measurement’ (FAME) mission is being run by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and will also see participation from UK satellite provision company Open Cosmos.
FAME aims to observe Earth by linking “more than 50 spacecraft from a wide range of operators in the largest autonomous satellite operations test ever attempted”, according to the three collaborators.
The mission will use satellites equipped with Ubotica’s onboard AI to monitor, identify and ‘understand’ Earth events such as wildfires, rogue ships or volcanic activity in real time and “act immediately in orbit, capturing additional data and triggering follow-on observations without waiting for ground analysis”.
According to Ubotica, traditional Earth observation optical, radar and infrared satellites capture and send data to their operators for “delayed processing”, whereas its AI platform “enables satellites to think, see and act autonomously, processing imagery in orbit in real time, extracting insights using advanced AI models and immediately transmitting critical intelligence to Earth”.
FAME intends to demonstrate replication of that capability “across an entire constellation”, so that observations, interpretations through AI and subsequent related behaviours by one satellite are interpreted by others in the network, which can then adjust their next behaviours accordingly in coordination as “an intelligent system”.
FAME’s foundation lies in a previous collaboration between the trio, who said that in July 2025, they successfully demonstrated ‘dynamic targeting’, enabling spacecraft to reorient in moments when required – without ground personnel involvement – to capture event confirmation imagery.
Ubotica CEO Fintan Buckley said: “Dynamic targeting showed what a single satellite with onboard AI can achieve. FAME shows what happens when that capability is coordinated across a network.
“Our contribution is the intelligence inside the Ubotica nodes: detecting what matters, processing it in orbit and passing the signal to whatever asset can act on it fastest. That is how you close the loop at a speed that is actually useful.”
The multiyear flight demonstration of FAME is expected to begin with an initial set of six spacecraft this summer. The collaborative work on dynamic targeting was recognised in December with the SpaceNews Icon Award for Space AI Partnership.
The trio said the first year of the mission will focus on maturing flight capabilities and executing AI and notification tests across the core constellation, while years two and three will see scaling to a network of more than 50 spacecraft “processing thousands of automated alerts and executing hundreds of autonomous on-orbit tasking commands across assets from multiple operators and agencies”.
Dublin-based Ubotica was founded in 2016 by Buckley, John Bourke and Aubrey Dunne. In February, the company was among the first chosen for involvement in Ireland’s European Space Agency Phi-Lab at Irish Manufacturing Research in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.
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