Abstract AUTONOMOUS OPERATIONS THROUGH ONBOARD ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) will fly onboard the Air Force TechSat 21 constellation of three spacecraft scheduled for launch in 2006. ASE uses onboard continuous planning, robust task and goal-based execution, model-based mode identification and reconfiguration, and onboard machine learn- ing and pattern recognition to radically increase science return by enabling intelligent downlink selection and autonomous retargeting. Demonstration of these capabilities in a flight environment will open up tremendous new opportunities in planetary science, space physics, and earth science that would be un- reachable without this technology.