Plenty of AI boosters will give the technology control over their inbox. Few are as bold as space-mining company AstroForge, which reckons it will give artificial intelligence control of an entire mission. The company will do this using Solo, “a spacecraft intelligence model designed to autonomously coordinate a spacecraft’s onboard functions.”
That’s not something you can just download and use. AstroForge created the AI model internally, specifically for events like its upcoming Autonomy-1 mission. That doesn’t mean the company will let AI handle a rocket launch — that’s going a little too far. The company’s mission, set for 2027, will travel on board the first launch of the Nova Pathfinder reusable rocket.
AstroForge identity
Before Autonomy-1, the mission that’s supposed to run “without a single command from the ground,” there will be a test flight. The mining company’s DeepSpace-2 mission, planned for later this year, will head off to chat with an asteroid. It’ll also have a passenger. The Solo AI is riding shotgun instead of behind the wheel. Once that’s tucked away, AstroForge will become… ambitious.
“Autonomy-1 will transmit telemetry and science data back to Earth so that we can observe what the spacecraft is doing, understand the decisions Solo makes, and collect science. But that information will only flow one way – from the spacecraft to the ground.”
It’s an expensive bet, especially while carrying a heliophysics experiment from NASA Goddard. As with any space exploration, there are many possible obstructions. DeepSpace-2 could be delayed. It could fail. Stoke Space’s Nova Pathfinder rocket could blow up on the launch pad or at any other point before it deploys AstroForge’s mission. And then there’s the possibility that Autonomy-1 goes haywire because the Solo AI made an… interesting… call.
Seeing AstroForge’s mission succeed will be brilliant in at least one way — more effective spacecraft control without needing human intervention. Seeing it go off the rails will be interesting in other ways. Namely, how long the ground control team can hold off from correcting Solo’s attempts to send its mission careening into the sun. The Nova Pathfinder rocket launch is scheduled for early next year. We’ll be keeping tabs on it, just to see what Solo gets up to.
