SpOC 4: Space Logistics
For the fourth time, the European Space Agency's Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) presents the Space Optimization Competition (SpOC). This year, SpOC 4 brings three brand new, tomato-themed challenges set in a futuristic Moon-based scenario. Get ready to tackle logistics, advertising, and orbital optimization problems offered by the Luna Tomato Industries!
Storyline
The year is 2082. Lunar City is thriving, and the Luna Tomato Industries have become the pride of the Moon. What started as a quest for the perfect tomato sauce has grown into a sprawling network of orbital logistics, high-tech advertising, and daring space missions. This year, the fate of the luna tomato supply, and the reputation of Luna Tomato Industries, rests on the ability of SpOC 4 competitors.
Three new challenges await, each inspired by the real-world complexities of space logistics, communication, and orbital mechanics. Will you help keep the tomatoes flowing, the messages shining, and the Moon’s orbit safe from runaway produce?
Competition Structure
SpOC 4 features three distinct problems, each with its own flavor:
1. Luna Tomato Logistics
Design a transport network to maximize the delivery of precious tomatoes from Earth orbits to lunar destinations. Each transfer must respect strict licensing regulations, but be careful: no orbit or destination can be used more than once! For advanced competitors, you’ll need to compute the actual transfer trajectories and maximize the total mass delivered, taking into account the complexities of orbital mechanics and transfer capacities.
2. Keplerian Tomato Traveling Salesperson
Disaster! Tomatoes are stranded in lunar orbit after a cargo mishap. As a logistics expert, you must collect all the tomatoes in the shortest possible time, planning a route that respects the limits of your spacecraft’s maneuvering capability. This is a traveling salesperson problem with a twist: the cost of moving between tomatoes depends on Keplerian dynamics, and not all transfers are feasible. Optimize your route, timing, and maneuvers to save the Luna Tomato Industry!
3. Luna Tomato Advertising
Can you broadcast advertisement across the lunar sky? Configure a fleet of spacecraft in lunar orbits to reproduce a Morse-code advertising campaign, using occultations as dots and dashes. Your goal: use as few spacecraft as possible while keeping the signal crisp and clear. Choose from Distant Retrograde, Lyapunov, and Axial orbits, and optimize the phases to match the target waveform. Everybody must know that tomatoes are for sale.
Detailed technical descriptions and scoring schemes for all three challenges are available on the Optimise platform.
Guidelines and Rules
The competition is hosted on the Optimise platform developed by the Advanced Concepts Team. Teams must register and submit their solutions via Optimise for validation. Attendance at any conference is not required to participate.
- Propose and implement metaheuristic algorithms to solve the three optimization problems.
- Submit your entries by 30 June 2026 via the Optimise portal.
- Please comply with our basic code of honour. The ACT reserves the right to exclude users who abuse the evaluation system.
We wish all participants the best of luck and look forward to your creative solutions!
NOTE: The submission portal remains open after 30 June 2026. Submissions received after that date will not be considered for the competition, but will still appear on the leaderboard.
Contact and Further Details
We maintain a GitHub repository to communicate with participants. Once the competition has started, details and data will be shared there. Please use the discussion feature for questions and feedback.