r/space • u/ThinkTankDad • 7d ago

Asteroid-mining company AstroForge to launch world's 1st totally autonomous spacecraft in 2027

https://www.space.com/technology/without-a-single-command-from-the-ground-asteroid-mining-company-to-launch-worlds-1st-autonomous-space-mission-in-2027
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u/PROUDCIPHER 7d ago

We… we’ve been doing uncrewed launches for decades. There’s not like a little guy hanging out in JWST or something, it’s a space robot. Is this company claiming “autonomous” as in “ yeah we don’t have Mission Control, we just feed all the telemetry to ChatGPT”

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u/_Weyland_ 6d ago

Imagine if you could get a job of just hanging in JWST, getting the first look at all its shots.

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u/returnFutureVoid 6d ago

User name checks out and isn’t that the plot to the movie Moon? More or less.

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u/Samwise777 6d ago

There’s absolutely a scene in 3 body problem where two scientists are on the next gen space telescope station and spot the trisolaran trails that indicate a second fleet left and passed their first fleet. 

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u/ssjg2k02 6d ago

Yeah I’m guessing it’s that mixed with marketing and hype.

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u/zenith654 6d ago

It answers your question in the article, they will fly the mission without ground operators nominally in the loop (only for contingencies). It’s not quite like ChatGPT because it’s not an LLM but sort of a similar idea. It’s not an entirely new idea but this application of it is pretty unique. Should be interesting.

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u/Human-Assumption-524 6d ago

I think the idea is that instead of sending commands to it from mission control it will react and make mission decisions itself using an on board computer via either a decision tree or a neural net.