10th International Workshop on On-Board Payload Data Compression

From October 12 to 14, UAB Casa Convalescència (Barcelona) will host the tenth edition of the On-Board Payload Data Compression Workshop (OBPDC 2026), an international conference dedicated to processing, reducing, and compressing data on board space missions. The opening ceremony will be led by Xavier Luri, director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC).

This event is organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), with the collaboration of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) as part of the “Compression Technologies for Commercial Satellites” project, led by Joan Serra, researcher at the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) at UAB.

OBPDC 2026 will bring together specialists from space agencies, industry, and academia to address the challenges arising from the massive volume of data generated by current instruments and satellites. Over the three days, topics will range from traditional compression techniques to the use of on-board artificial intelligence, deep learning algorithms, and high-performance hardware implementations. The programme will feature, among others, Ignasi Ribas, researcher at the IEEC within the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) and former director of the institute, who will give a presentation on the PhotSat mission. 

In this new edition, OBPDC consolidates its position as a benchmark workspace for the space community. Throughout its history, the conference has accompanied the evolution of the sector from classic compression methods to current intelligent on-board processing solutions, providing an exchange environment to evaluate accumulated experience and define data management for upcoming missions.