The harsh conditions of space have so far limited the use of AI on board satellites that play a critical role in theis in "the Dark Ages," says former NASA administrator Dan Goldin. "Instead of doing edge computing, it is done in data centers and mission control."
Putting AI devices on satellites could give them more autonomy to navigate using data they collect in real time."Sensor data collection is growing exponentially, not only on Earth, but in space, whereas communication downlink technology is only growing linearly," says Paul Quintana of Untether AI. "You can't send all the data from space down anymore. You have to do on-orbit processing."The vacuum of space makes it difficult to dissipate the heat generated by processors.
Efficient is developing a chip that can handle different types of computation — it can process other data for the satellite along with machine learning models. Lucia says it uses up to 100 times less energy to run the same program compared to a CPU off the market.