Preface

Since the first International Conference on Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology (SMC-IT) at Pasadena in 2003, this series of events has sought to bring together space and IT professionals from the broadest possible range of backgrounds, drawing from US and non-US civil space agencies, US national labs, US defense, US and international academia, and across the international space industry.The 9th SMC-IT was held 18-21 July 2023, at Caltech, in Pasadena, California.The event was co-located with the 14th International Conference on Space Computing (SCC).Both events provided an opportunity for system designers, engineers, scientists, practitioners, and space explorers to foster technical interchange on all hardware and software aspects of IT applications for space missions.SMC-IT seeks to maintain a balance between current IT best practices vs. emerging information technologies with applicability for future space missions.The IT challenges explored and discussed at SMC-IT continue to encompass all aspects of space missions, including cross-cutting and multidisciplinary aspects.This diversity is one of the distinguishing characteristics that sets SMC-IT apart from other domain-specific conferences.SMC-IT includes ground systems, science data processing, software and hardware engineering and reliable software, engineering and development tools, machine learning for space systems and operations, modeling and simulation methods, human and robotic systems interfaces, high-performance computing, autonomous systems, image processing and visualization, operations, and telecommunications.The entire IT lifecycle of mission development is covered, such as conceptual design, engineering tools development, integration and test, operations, science analysis, quality control, and outreach.