JAXA Opens 7th Kibo Robot Programming Challenge Using Real ISS Robot

Japan's space agency JAXA, working with NASA, is inviting student teams to write autonomous programs that will control a real robot aboard the International Space Station, as reported by 로봇신문 (Robot Newspaper), citing an original report from Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

The competition, called the Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (Kibo-RPC), is now in its 7th edition and runs under the Japan-US Open Platform Partnership Program (JP-US OP3), jointly operated by JAXA and NASA. It is open to graduate students and younger participants from Japan and other Kibo-RPC participating countries and regions.

Unlike joystick-based teleoperation, competitors must build software that lets the robot fly, sense its surroundings, and complete assigned tasks entirely on its own. Teams first develop and test their code in a virtual simulator representing the ISS Japanese Experiment Module, known as Kibo. Judges evaluate how well each team's machine learning models handle the station's unpredictable lighting conditions and microgravity physics.

What sets this year's contest apart is that, for the first time, finalist programs will be run on JAXA's actual free-flying robot, Int-Ball 2, in orbit rather than only in simulation. Int-Ball 2 is a spherical robot 200mm in diameter, equipped with a camera, microphone, and eight propellers that let it maneuver autonomously in weightlessness.

This year's mission scenario asks teams to use Int-Ball 2 to investigate a simulated small drop in cabin air pressure detected aboard the ISS. Competing programs must search for a suspected leak point, position the robot accurately, and gather observational data to identify the cause of an otherwise invisible anomaly using only limited information.

Registration for participants closes on October 14. Once applicants are confirmed, the simulation environment will be released and full programming work will begin. National and regional qualifying rounds are scheduled for January and February of next year, followed by an on-orbit final competition using the real Int-Ball 2 between April and June.