Open research for the space economy
In common mission-planning practice, energy reserve and heat rejectionGetting waste heat out of a vehicle. In space, a radiator panel emits that heat as radiation. Heat rejection can constrain high-power spacecraft before available electrical power does. are often reduced to fixed margins before a plannerThe software that decides what a robot or spacecraft does next, and in what order. It is separate from the control loop, which carries out each action once it has been chosen. selects work.
Mindpool Labs is developing models that will bring those states into the planning loopThe repeating cycle in which a planner reads the current state, chooses the next actions, then revises as the state changes. For a physics model to sit inside this loop rather than beside it, it has to run fast enough to be consulted on every pass., so mission teams can examine the limits that shape a schedule rather than carry them only as a budget.
- Battery SOC
- 62%
- Payload duty
- 58%
- Radiator root
- 376.6K
- Margin to limit
- +21.4K
Illustrative simulation · limit 398 K · sink 120 K
Three ways we work
Papers
We plan to publish the assumptions, models, and evidence behind each result. Each paper will be paired with a runnable artifact and, where the work supports it, an independent university reviewer or co-author.
Open-source software
Our planned releases cover models, planners, simulators, and benchmarksA fixed set of scenarios, metrics and baseline methods that anyone can run, so that results from different groups can be compared honestly. under Apache-2.0A permissive open-source license. It allows commercial use, modification and redistribution, and it carries an explicit patent grant.. The physics must run fast enough to sit inside a planning loop rather than beside it.
Partners
Universities, government programs, and organizations can shape realistic scenarios, challenge assumptions, and provide facilities when the work reaches hardware.
Current initiative
Power- and thermal-constrained autonomy
The first reference missionA bounded, published mission scenario used to test one research claim. It fixes the assumptions, initial conditions, limits, metrics and comparison method so that another team can run the same study. asks whether a small lunar rover can plan useful work through the lunar-night boundary while keeping its battery and thermal state within declared limits. Servicing robots and high-power spacecraft follow as transfer cases once that result is established.
- Energy reserve
- SoC(t)
- Battery node
- Tbattery(t)
- Heater demand
- Qheater(t)
- Useful work
- Wtask(t)
Where we sit in the ecosystem
Space is the umbrella. Energy and robotics are the two pillars beneath it, while software, simulation, and physics run across the five layers in our working research model. Explore the ecosystem map
Work with us
Aerospace, thermal, and robotics engineers can review the reference mission while its assumptions remain open; partner organizations can bring a scenario against which to assess the planner. View open roles · Propose a scenario