Using auctions to download satellite data

An ESA Discovery & Preparation study looked into how spacecraft can be increasingly automated to make their operations more effective, and came up with the remarkable idea of auctioning off access to ground stations, to maximise the amount of data that can be sent down in a given time period.

The study developed a decentralised solution that models data exchange based on an approach similar to trading in a market economy.  They propose that every satellite and ground station could negotiate individually to make a decision about when different data is transferred.

Read more here.