Artificial Intelligence in Practice

46NASA: Using Artificial Intelligence To Explore Space And Distant Worlds

NASA will launch its next mission to Mars in 2020. It has landed four Mars rover craft on the surface of the red planet so far, starting with the first successful landing of Sojourner in 1997. The most recent landing was by the rover Curiosity in 2011. As artificial intelligence (AI) technology is far more advanced than at the time the last rover was launched, the as-yet unnamed Mars 2020 rover craft will be the most automated and intelligent yet. Its primary goal will be searching for signs that the red planet may once have been home to life.

Beyond this, NASA's deep space probes – such as the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Voyager missions to the outer reaches of the solar system – have travelled further than any other man-made object from Earth, and continue to send back data, adding to our understanding of the universe we live in.

What Problem Is Artificial Intelligence Helping To Solve?

One of the biggest obstacles in space exploration is the limited amount of bandwidth available for sending information back to Earth. Due to the distances involved, even today these data volumes are measured in mere megabits.

Particularly when exploring the far reaches of the solar system, unmanned spacecraft can often be out of contact with humans for long periods of time. Their ability to make autonomous decisions about what information is valuable to their Earth-bound operators is vital.

Another problem ...