Provision of technical services for the AIDRA project demonstration on AI-enabled on-board data processing — Exp. 246340-2026

The European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen) seeks to award a direct service contract to support the implementation of AIDRA (Artificial Intelligence In-orbit Data pRocessing Assessment), a cooperative initiative between the SatCen and the European Defence Agency (EDA). AIDRA is designed as a proof-of-concept to assess the feasibility, traceability, operational implications and governance conditions of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled On-Board Data Processing (OBDP) in support of Earth Observation (EO) and Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) workflows. The purpose of AIDRA is to generate independent, evidence-based insights into the maturity, risks and potential benefits of AI-OBDP for GEOINT, in support of EU objectives on technological readiness, operational effectiveness and secure information governance. The objective of the demonstration is to evaluate, under space-representative conditions, how AI-enabled on-board processing and tasking functions perform within an end-to-end EO data chain. The assessment focuses on technical behaviour, system performance and interaction with existing GEOINT workflow requirements. The initiative does not aim to deploy an operational capability, but to generate structured evidence to support institutional evaluation.