By Kurtis Archer | 2024-11-27

As artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized many industries and tasks traditionally dominated by humans on Earth, governments are prioritizing the application of AI and machine learning (ML) in space.

AI excels at basic tasks like searching databases and generating simple summaries, saving time and money for research and innovation.

For example, historically, pursuing government contracts required procurement personnel to spend weeks or even months searching through databases and reviewing various documents.

Now, AI is drastically reducing the time needed both to find relevant contracts and write proposals, with the result being reviewed and finalized by human professionals.

The US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is creating initiatives to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years on AI capabilities.

"This represents a significant investment in computer vision, [ML], and AI," NGA director Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth said in September of the plans, adding that the agency will work with private companies to create solutions for ever-increasing quantities of remote sensing imagery and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) data.

"Together, we will ensure the delivery of timely, relevant and AI-enabled GEOINT to our customers, partners and allies," he continued.

These solutions aim to label specific objects like vegetation, buildings, roads and more within raw data footage to make them intelligible for ML models, which will rely heavily on the labeling.

This opportunity, worth upwards of $700 million, marks the US government's largest request for proposals for this type of AI technology to date, said Whitworth.

Space exploration

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is already using AI to analyze mountains of data collected from US satellites and space probes.

These technologies allow scientists to identify patterns, anomalies and potential discoveries that would be extremely difficult for humans to find manually.

NASA is also developing autonomous spacecraft systems capable of adapting to conditions and making decisions without human controllers.

The US space agency is applying AI technology to Mars rover missions, where it is used to navigate the Martian terrain, collect soil samples and conduct scientific experiments.

AI has been used to track debris orbiting Earth and to develop systems to analyze flight telemetries, while scientists rely on ML to discover hundreds of exoplanets from satellite data.

"AI and ML are becoming powerful contributors in the overall space exploration ecosystem," said NASA Chief AI Officer David Salvagnini in July.

The European Space Agency (ESA) in 2022 funded 12 projects to explore the application of AI and advanced computing paradigms to see whether satellites can be made more reactive, agile and autonomous.

One of the projects examines how to establish cloud computing in outer space, while others research how AI-equipped satellites could directly improve lives on Earth.

Meanwhile, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)'s Epsilon rocket is the first to use AI to self-monitor performance continuously and autonomously and to adjust to conditions as needed.

The Epsilon utilizes a "mobile launch control," which enables rocket-launch control using two desktop computers in tandem, according to JAXA.

"We aim to greatly simplify the launch system by using [AI]," said Yasuhiro Morita, project manager for the Epsilon Launch Vehicle, in July.

JAXA also developed an intelligent robot called "Int-ball" that takes pictures of experiments in the International Space Station, saving astronauts' valuable time.

Race for AI

China is also prioritizing AI capabilities in space.

The People's Liberation Army has increasingly turned to AI to manage its satellite networks and enable real-time threat analysis.

"China is making rapid advancements and noteworthy investments in its AI capabilities," according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

"It is developing AI not only to advance China's economic growth more broadly but also for military applications, such as autonomous unmanned systems, data processing, decision-making and cognitive warfare," the commission said in its annual report released this month.

The commission calls on Congress to create and fund a program to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI) to expand AI from task-based activities to activities that mimic reasoning, learning and adapting for growth in problem-solving spaces.

AGI is currently theoretical and remains a distant goal, but the report emphasizes the importance to the United States of not falling behind China in AI technology.

The commission strongly advises Congress to instruct the Department of Defense to provide AI development initiatives with top priority status for needed finances and other resources.