Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy

Overview

Development stage

In development or acquisitionSource: a) Pre-deployment – The use case is in a development or acquisition status.

High-impact designation

Not high-impactSource: c) Not high-impact

Impact justification

Not reported

Start date

Not reported

Withheld from public reporting

NoSource: a) No

Mission

Topic area

Science

Operational functions

No function tag matched Derived by keyword rules; see methodology

Problem the AI is intended to solve

Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA) is a project developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that enables distributed spacecraft systems through the development of three capabilities: scalable communication, distributed coordination and planning, and human-swarm interaction. DSA will demonstrate these capabilities in two contexts. The first context is a flight demonstration consisting of a software payload hosted on the Starling-1 small-spacecraft mission. This software payload will use the on-board GPS receiver to perform in-situ, swarm-level reconfiguration in response to observed features in the Topside Ionosphere. The second context is a scalability study, which shows how the technologies developed in the flight demonstration can scale to a large number of spacecraft (≈ 100). The scalability demonstration applies the tools developed for the flight mission to a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the flight software payload.

Expected benefits

Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA) is a project developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that enables distributed spacecraft systems through the development of three capabilities: scalable communication, distributed coordination and planning, and human-swarm interaction. DSA will demonstrate these capabilities in two contexts. The first context is a flight demonstration consisting of a software payload hosted on the Starling-1 small-spacecraft mission. This software payload will use the on-board GPS receiver to perform in-situ, swarm-level reconfiguration in response to observed features in the Topside Ionosphere. The second context is a scalability study, which shows how the technologies developed in the flight demonstration can scale to a large number of spacecraft (≈ 100). The scalability demonstration applies the tools developed for the flight mission to a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the flight software payload. Distributed Spacecraft Systems are a type of multi-spacecraft mission architecture that can not only provide improved resolution, coverage, and availability of existing missions, but also enable missions that would be previously infeasible using traditional approaches. Autonomy is a critical need for these systems, since the cost associated with applying conventional approaches for command and control does not scale with the number of spacecraft.

System outputs

DSA will demonstrate these capabilities in two contexts. The first context is a flight demonstration consisting of a software payload hosted on the Starling-1 small-spacecraft mission. This software payload will use the on-board GPS receiver to perform in-situ, swarm-level reconfiguration in response to observed features in the Topside Ionosphere. The second context is a scalability study, which shows how the technologies developed in the flight demonstration can scale to a large number of spacecraft (≈ 100). The scalability demonstration applies the tools developed for the flight mission to a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the flight software payload.

Technology

AI classification

Agentic AISource: Agentic AI: AI systems that perform tasks or make decisions autonomously with minimal human intervention.

System name(s)

Not reported

Custom-developed code

Not reported

Public source code

Not reported

Sourcing

How it was built

Not reported

Vendor (as reported)

Not reported

Vendors (standardized)

None on the standard list

A vendor is the supplier named by the agency. It does not identify the underlying model or AI technology.

Data and privacy

Involves PII

Not reported

Privacy Impact Assessment

Not reported

Authorization to Operate

Not reported

Demographic features

Not reported

Training and evaluation data

Not reported

Federal Data Catalog

Not reported

Governance

0 of 8 minimum-practice questions answered. A blank answer means the agency reported nothing; it does not mean the practice is absent.

Potential impacts and how they were identified

Not reported