What Happened
Advanced Chip Enables Autonomous Spacecraft Operations
NASA’s High Performance Spaceflight Computing project is developing a sophisticated chip to give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves. The new radiation-hardened, high-performance processor is designed to provide up to 100 times the computational capacity of current spaceflight computers. Testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has shown promising results, with the processor operating at 500 times the performance of current radiation-hardened chips. The technology is expected to enable autonomous spacecraft to use artificial intelligence to respond in real time to complex situations, accelerating the rate of scientific discoveries. This development was first reported by astrobiology.com.