Deploying AI on a Satellite in Earth Orbit

What is it about?

Future space missions to the moon, mars, and beyond will require spacecraft systems with more autonomy. Autonomous capabilities allow spacecraft to make important decisions to achieve their mission when they are far away from human operators. Artificial intelligence (AI) flight software can enable onboard autonomy but only if it can meet the requirements of the space environment and flight hardware, like limited size, weight, power, memory, and radiation tolerance. To meet these requirements we can implement modern AI algorithms, like neural networks, across different parts of spacecraft flight computers. We have shown one of the first cases of splitting a neural network across different parts of a flight computer onboard a satellite, using a custom deployment toolkit we designed.

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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Examples of data-driven AI operating on spacecraft are limited and this work documents an important technology demonstration showing how neural networks on spacecraft can be reprogrammed in flight, a step that helps de-risk use of neural networks in future space exploration and earth observation missions. It also demonstrates how the onboard computing resources of a satellite can be better utilized for AI applications