In-Orbit Experimental Validation of Autonomous Operations within the AIX Satellite-as-a-Service Framework

As Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations continue to scale, traditional ground-centric operational paradigms struggle to meet increasing demands in latency, flexibility, and operational cost. The AIX (AI-eXpress) mission series addresses these limitations by introducing a service-oriented satellite architecture that enables dynamic in-orbit resource usage and application deployment. This paper presents the in-orbit experimental activities performed with orbital_OLIVER, an autonomous operations software suite currently flying onboard the AIX mission, developed in collaboration with Planetek Italia and D-Orbit.
Orbital_OLIVER provides goal-driven planning and onboard decision-making functions, operating as an application layer on top of the AIX service framework. Flight experiments target autonomous mission execution features including application-level fault handling, controlled restart, operational mode switching, and dynamic reconfiguration following mission knowledge updates. These capabilities are assessed on operational hardware to evaluate robustness, controllability, and integration with the AIX service lifecycle. Within the Satellite-as-a-Service paradigm enabled by AIX, such experiments aim to reduce operational coupling with the ground segment while supporting flexible Earth Observation services and multi-tenant usage scenarios. The results contribute to the validation of onboard autonomy as a practical enabler for scalable and responsive LEO service platforms.