We present a detailed phenomenological study of the prospects of open charm physics at the future $bar{p}p$ and $pp$ facilities GSI-FAIR and J-PARC, respectively. In particular, we concentrate on differential cross sections and the charge and longitudinal double-spin asymmetries at next-to-leading order accuracy. Theoretical uncertainties for the proposed observables are estimated by varying the charm quark mass and the renormalization and factorization scales.