Humans in an Autonomous and Robotic World

Exploring and Enabling Human-Machine Partnerships for Sustained Deep-Space Presence including Moon and Mars

Workshop Dates: December 8-9, 2025

Venue: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington DC

Room: The Kenny Link (Rooms 426/428/430)

Dress Code: Business casual

Travel Information: here

Meals: Breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks are provided both days, and there is a reception at the end of the first day. There will be a payment option for those required to pay for their meals.

Description

Through the Artemis program, astronauts will return to the Moon in 2028, supporting the American goal of developing a sustained presence and a thriving lunar economy and continuing onto Mars. This will thrust humans into a machine world of diverse autonomous systems working in remote and demanding environment to achieve science, exploration and commercial goals within a complex infrastructure architecture. There is a critical need for space stakeholders to develop in this envisioned future of operations in a human, autonomous and robotic ecosystem. A more human-centric and integrated perspective to robotic teaming will ensure maximal astronaut safety and optimize performance for assured, robust, and faster operations.

Objective

The workshop objective is to develop a strategic, collaborative roadmap for assured, integrated human-machine space operations, multi-stakeholder collaborations and consortium, and a technology and policy research/analysis agenda to accelerate a sustainable human presence in space.

This is an unclassified workshop and no CUI material will be discussed.

Registration

Registration is by invitation only – a link will be provided

Agenda Overview

Day 1 (Dec 8, 2025)

Time Event
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM Introduction and Welcome (info)
9:45 AM Panel 1: Civil Space Perspective (info)
10:45 AM Coffee Break
11:15 AM Panel 2: National Security Space Perspective (info)
12:15 PM Lunch
1:30 PM Panel 3: “New” Space Perspective (info)
2:30 PM Coffee Break
3:00 PM Panel 4: Research and Analysis Stakeholder Perspective (info)
4:00 PM Small Group Discussions
5:00 PM Reception (until 7 PM)

Day 2 (Dec 9, 2025)

Time Event
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 AM Keynote and Discussion (info)
9:45 AM Panel 5: Astronaut Performance through Assured Health (info)
10:45 AM Coffee Break
11:15 AM Panel 6: Human-Machine Operations and Integration (info)
12:15 PM Lunch and Presentation
  - Leveraging Agentic AI for Peer-to-Peer Human-Robot Teaming, David Handelman, Johns Hopkins APL (bio)
1:30 PM Panel 7: Astronaut Perspectives on HMT Operations (info)
2:30 PM Coffee Break
3:00 PM Panel 8: Next Steps (info)
  - Facilitated small group discussions
  - Report outs - the way forward
5:00 PM Adjourn

Agenda Details

Introduction and Welcome

Panel 1: Civil Space Perspective

Time: Dec 8, 9:45 AM

Objective: The envisioned future of space exploration includes a sustained presence on the Moon and eventually Mars. It is currently not clear what the mix of human and robotic assets will be or their roles. While robotic assets will presumably be more prolific than human presence, the extent to which we will want robots to support the human operations, and how humans can most effectively utilize robotic assets for more efficient, safer and productive operations has yet to be determined. This panel will address the civilian space perspective and path forward, from a variety of stakeholders’ perspectives, on the human and machine teaming for enabling a sustained presence on the Moon and eventually Mars.

Moderator:

Panelists:

Panel 2: National Security Space Perspective

Time: Dec 8, 11:15 AM

Objective: As the multi-stakeholder civilian space envisioned future for a sustained presence on the Moon unfolds, the question of security for operations, communications, and various government and commercial activities will arise as multiple nations and international corporations operate in common areas with mutually common as well as conflicting interests. Lesson learned from working to secure space operations in Earth orbit and more recently in cis-lunar space may apply, and in some instances not apply, for ensuring safe, effective and multi-lateral beneficial operations on the lunar and eventually Martian surfaces. This panel will address the space security considerations and path forward for multinational government and commercial human and machine operations on the Moon and eventually Mars.

Moderator:

Panelists:

Panel 3: “New” Space Perspective

Time: Dec 8, 1:30 PM

Objective: Commercially-led human and robotic activities in space are becoming increasingly prevalent and are more and more shaping the future of human spaceflight. This collaboration will extend to the Moon and eventually Mars. The commercial spaceflight industry has a unique perspective on space exploration than has historically been different from that of government-led efforts. The purpose of this panel is to hear from these relatively new participants on how HMT will need to evolve to most effectively support activities on the Moon and Mars.

Moderator:

Panelists:

Panel 4: Research and Analysis Stakeholder Perspective

Time: Dec 8, 3:00 PM

Objective: National labs, universities, research centers including UARCs and FFRDCs, and other private institutions and companies have historically been major stakeholders in the development of technologies for enabling the success of the US space industry and exploration of the solar system. Recently, in addition to government agencies, private organizations have begun to take a leading role in space exploration. This panel will discuss how the level of participation by these stakeholders is evolving as the space frontier is again pushed beyond Earth orbit, and specifically toward achieving the goal of a persistent presence on the Moon and eventually Mars.

Moderator:

Panelists:

Keynote and Discussion

Time: Dec 9, 9:00 AM

Speaker: Brian Weeden, Director of Civil and Commercial Policy, Center for Space Policy and Strategy (bio)

Panel 5: Astronaut Performance through Assured Health

Time: Dec 9, 9:45 AM

Objective: Humans and machines (robotic assistants) will work together closely when exploring the moon and Mars. They must function together as a synergistic team, with the human crew understanding the capabilities of the robots, and the robots understanding the capabilities of the humans, in real-time as they change over the course of an EVA or a mission. Physiological and cognitive assessments can provide this information, which can be processed to provide insights into immediate status and anticipated problems and which can in turn be used to modulate the level of robotic assistance, making dynamic changes for best use of the respective capabilities of each member of the human-machine team.

Moderator:

Panelists:

Panel 6: Human-Machine Operations and Integration

Time: Dec 9, 11:15 AM

Objective: The objective is to extract cross-domain lessons on how humans and autonomous systems can function as teams – safely, effectively, and accountably – in high-consequence environments such as space, medicine, national security, and critical infrastructure. As autonomy grows, machines must understand context and human intent, while humans must maintain awareness and calibrated trust. Effective teaming rests on sound interfaces, training, and verification. Together, human and machine partners must manage cognitive load, fatigue, faults, and off-nominal conditions to ensure safe, adaptive performance.

Moderators:

Panelists:

Panel 7: Astronaut Perspectives on HMT Operations

Time: Dec 9, 1:30 PM

Objective: The envisioned future of sustained human presence on the moon will be in an environment rich with autonomous/robotic systems. Astronauts have unique experiences of working in a space environment conducting different missions with an array of technology. This panel is an opportunity to learn about these experiences from people who have been in that setting.

Moderators:

Panelists:

Panel 8: Next Steps: Integrated Human Machine Partnerships for a Sustained Presence, Moon to Mars

Time: Dec 9, 3:00 PM

Objective: The workshop to this point will have presented various aspects and points of view on human-machine teaming in space exploration. The field will benefit from a cohesive plan of action as to the main areas to be investigated and the expertise needed. The panel will discuss and begin to chart the path forward for implementing the findings of this workshop.

Moderators:

Panelists:

Organizers

Mark Shelhamer Amy Haufler, Karl Hibbitts Peter Kazanzides

Support

This workshop is made possible by funding from the Johns Hopkins Nexus Award program.