Author: Rachel Ferrone

COSMIC is very excited to announce the public release of our second integrated use-case report on Upgrade, Repair, and Replace.

The core definition of this use case is to use ISAM capabilities to physically alter a space vehicle after its launch in one of three ways:

Upgrade: Improvement of a spacecraft’s capabilities or the introduction of new capabilities through servicing.

Repair: The re-establishment of spacecraft capabilities as originally designed through servicing without the replacement or addition of components.

Replacement: The physical swap of components or installation of units with identical functionality, resulting in restored or extended capability.

This new publication along with the other publicly released ISAM products can be found here.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this year’s Virtual Convergence and to our outstanding speakers who made it such a success!

We kicked off with Bo Naasz, COSMIC Steering Committee Chair, who shared insights on the State of COSMIC and highlighted several exciting NASA opportunities currently available. Joe Anderson, Vice President of Space Logistics, provided a compelling briefing on the future of Mission Robotic Vehicles (MRVs).

Several of our Steering Committee members—Bernie Kelm, Stephen Duall, Joe Anderson, and Brad Kinsey—participated in an engaging panel discussion on COSMIC’s pivotal role in the future of ISAM. Additionally, COSMIC’s own Alec Cavaciuti delivered updates on our latest Use Case Reports.

The event concluded with presentations from each Focus Area lead, who shared exciting new developments in their respective areas and participated in a panel to offer further insights, perspectives, and opportunities for members to get involved.

We look forward to seeing you all this December 1-3 for CONFERgence in Fairfax, Virginia. Stay tuned for venue and registration information in the upcoming months!

NASA is seeking U.S. researchers to lead experiments on the Fly Foundational Robots (FFR) Mission.

The NASA Space Roboticist Challenge invites principal investigators, post-doctoral researchers, professors, and graduate students to compete for allocated time on a 7-Degree-of-Freedom robotic arm in Low Earth Orbit, supporting NASA’s In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) strategy.

Registration is open now at SpaceRoboticistChallenge.com. White paper submissions open June 9th during the COSMIC Virtual Convergence 2026, so if you’re joining us that week, this is your moment to learn more and get in.

Administered by Floor23 Digital on behalf of NASA.

Learn more at https://floor23digital.com/space-roboticist-challenge/

COSMIC’s new report, “Regulations 103: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of State,” from our Policy & Regulation Focus Area is now available for public release!

Prepared by Tony Lin, Sabrina Jawed, and Ryan Guglietta, this report is a summary of their January 15th workshop that discussed the process for obtaining FAA payload safety review and space object registrations and when and why such authorizations are necessary for In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) operations

This new publication along with the other publicly released ISAM products can be found here.

Thank you to all the students, advisors, mentors, judges, and organizers for making the 2nd Annual COSMIC Capstone Challenge a huge success! We had 34 teams compete this year, and the 28 judges collectively made 223 evaluations, at least five for each presenting team.

We are very excited to announce this year’s overall winner: Deep Interstellar Solutions from Kennesaw State University, for their “Conceptual Design of In-Space Orbital Reliable Printed Circuit Boards (ORCA).”

he Consortium for Space Mobility and ISAM Capabilities (COSMIC) has published an analysis of the current and future prospects of on-orbit refueling in geostationary orbit (GEO), finding that “significant work remains” to make this key use case “reliable and routine” for national security, civil and commercial space to leverage in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities.