SpOC 3: Orbital Megastructures

For the third time, the European Space Agency's Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) presents in cooperation with the The Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) the Space Optimization Competition (SpOC). Look forward to three challenging problems placed in an futuristic space mission scenario.

Storyline

The year is 2287 and you wander through the tunnels of Lunar City. Passing by you favorite kiosk, which is the only one on the Moon that still sells newspapers made out of real paper, an article in The Earth Observer catches your eyes. You grab a copy and a cup of 100% Quetelet-Crate-Bean coffee.

Winners of the Orbital Megastructure competition announced.

After decades of negotiation, two of the most ambitious projects that humanity has ever conceived are finally scheduled to commence next year. The Golomb Ruler Advanced Interferometric Lens (GRAIL) and the Orbital Assembly of Self-organising Interstellar Spacecraft (OASIS) projects have been selected among more than three dozen candidates competing for the immense amounts of funding. Despite the fierce competition, the unanimous opinion is that the sheer ambition and scope of cooperation on these projects will elevate humanity to a new level as a species.

Although the winning projects could not be more different, they are inexorably linked. The veteran GRAIL project (the oldest of all proposals, first conceived in the distant 21st century), overcame severe criticism and convinced the judges with solid arguments for its usefulness. The GRAIL project became relevant overnight with the discovery of Gaia Gemina - the likely habitable 'Earth twin' planet located squarely in the middle of the Goldilocks zone around an inconspicuous Sun-like star in the constellation of Sagittarius. The GRAIL team promises that the project will be completed within record time using new materials and orbital stabilisation mechanisms, enabling astronomers to examine Gaia Gemina and its cosmic neighbourhood in unprecedented detail just a few years from now.

In contrast, OASIS is a latecomer to the project race. It represents the hope of humanity to become a space-faring species by sending the first crew of people to Gaia Gemina. Initially viewed as a practically impossible task, the construction of the multi-generational interstellar ship is now scheduled to begin in orbit around Earth at the same time as the GRAIL project. The ship - which has yet to be given a name - must be large and sophisticated enough to sustain several generations of pioneers on their way to Gaia Gemina.

Of course, both GRAIL and OASIS would depend on the outcome of the Graph Reduction Algorithm for Planetary-scale Hyperoptimisation (GRAPH) meta-project. Originally selected as the tool of choice for solving challenges such as those posed by GRAIL and OASIS, the pressure for this approach to work has increased manyfold with the completion of the multi-year negotiation marathon for funding GRAIL and OASIS. As the winning projects are scheduled to commence next year, it remains to be seen whether GRAPH was indeed the right choice.

Whatever the outcome, rallying behind these projects - not at the local or national but at the planetary level - is no small feat, and the sense of accomplishment and anticipation is already palpable. Needless to say, the stakes are high for all projects to succeed in the mission to guarantee the safety of the first intrepid interstellar explorers!

Competition Structure

SpOC 3.0 contains three distinct problems centered around a futuristic space mission. Starting from 1 April 2024 you have three months to tackle these challenges to secure a spot on the leaderboard.

Detailed technical descriptions for the three challenges to be solved and the scoring scheme will be made available on the Optimise platform from the same date.

Guidelines and Rules

The competition will be hosted on the Optimise platform developed by the Advanced Concepts Team. Teams will need to register online on the platform, and solution entries will need to be submitted via Optimise for validation. While SpOC is organized in cooperation with GECCO 2024, it is not required to attend GECCO 2024 in order to participate in SpOC.

• Your objective is to propose and implement metaheuristic algorithms to solve the proposed optimisation problems.
• In order to validate your solutions, we will provide you with Python validation code for each of the three problems. This code includes problem definitions in the Pygmo user-defined problem (UDP) format, examples of solutions, and visualisation tools.
• You have until 30 June 2024 to submit your entries via the dedicated portal Optimise.
• Please comply with our basic code of honour. The ACT reserves the right to exclude users from the competition if they abuse the evaluation system.

We wish all participants the best of luck and are excited to see what you accomplish!

Timeline

NOTE: The submission portal remains open after 30 June 2024. Submissions received after that date will not be taken into consideration for the competition, but still appear on the leaderboard.

Contact and Further Details

We maintain a GitHub repository to communicate with the participants. Once the competition has started, we will share details and data there. Please use the discussion feature for questions and feedback.