Scientists gathering data that could indicate life on other celestial bodies in the solar system or from planets in star systems light-years away will need new artificial intelligence (AI) systems to overcome major challenges.
Steve Chien of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory took the audience on an engaging tour of how AI is being used in space exploration today and in the future, especially in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Chien described how AI has been used in space missions since the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite in 2000, the first to implement machine learning in space. That satellite could autonomously identify and report significant events, like volcanic eruptions, by sending knowledge rather than raw data, he said. Other mission robots like the Mars rovers employ AI for navigation and scientific targeting, which can greatly enhance data collection and give scientists valuable information.
Perhaps the greatest challenges for AI are exploring other worlds, such as Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons that is thought to have more water beneath its surface than Earth. In his talk, Chien described how the Europa Clipper mission, currently en route to the icy moon, will gather remote sensing data of Europa.
Potential future missions could involve landing on Europa’s surface to search for signs of life, and advanced AI systems capable of making autonomous decisions in real time, especially given the communication delays with Earth, will be necessary, Chien said.
Chien extoled the virtues of JPL’s snake-like robot called EELS, or Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor, inspired by a desire to investigate Enceladus, a small icy Saturn moon. EELS was developed to go into a crevasse to hunt for life, straddling it and pressing outward for grip – which will be necessary on Enceladus. This novel next-generation explorer would have to rely on a new kind of AI, endowing it with autonomy that future robots would need to be able to investigate more difficult spots than rovers can reach.
And if that challenge were not enough, imagine trying to investigate a world in another solar system. Chien explained how we can meet the challenges of searching for life in the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, even further beyond our solar system. Even for a notional interstellar mission, it would likely take much more than 70 years to reach the Centauri system, which is more than 4 light-years away. If a spacecraft could get there, how would it run its mission without human intervention? Chien described the necessity for autonomous systems that can conduct scientific investigations on their own without human interaction.
In this inspiring presentation, Chien brilliantly related the difficulties of making space exploration and the search for signs of life accessible using artificial intelligence.
