VISIMO to Test Autonomous AI System for Spacecraft Decision Support
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Oct 11, 2024

VISIMO, a technology company based in Pittsburgh, PA, will test its autonomous AI system designed for decision support on an upcoming mission conducted by ABOVE Space Development Corporation, a company known for developing adaptable space platforms for commercial and defense sectors.

Deep-space missions present significant challenges, requiring spacecraft to handle unforeseen issues and system failures without relying on Earth-based communication. Effective decision support systems are crucial to help crews manage missions and respond to unexpected failures, reducing the need for extensive ground crew involvement and streamlining problem-solving processes.

VISIMO's system, known as Graceful Architecture for Mitigation of System failures (GRAMS), is part of a NASA Phase II contract. The GRAMS system focuses on autonomous systems management for long-duration space missions. Its modular cognitive architecture can detect, adapt to, and recover from both known and unknown failures, lessening the reliance on human intervention and improving mission resilience.

"We're excited to partner with ABOVE and potentially its customers on upcoming missions to use our Cognitive Architecture (CA) platform to identify and mitigate systems failures, having already completed earth-based testing," said Alex Heit, VP of Government Markets and Growth at VISIMO. "In the future, we plan to equip spacecraft to send wide-ranging data including avionics, telemetry, power consumption, payload health, and ultimately astronaut vital signs on future manned missions."

Rhonda Stevenson, CEO of ABOVE Space Development Corporation, added, "ABOVE is executing on our strategy to provide hosted payloads, space system services, and consulting, as well as automated platforms for customers like VISIMO, who are providing critical state-of-the-art analytics from orbit. VISIMO represents a synergistic opportunity for our customers as they may be able to leverage this exciting platform for their own mission evaluation and real-time data transfer from space."

VISIMO's CA platform is connected to key NASA missions such as the ISS, Moon to Mars, and Advanced Exploration Systems (AES).

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