Episode 5 of NEXUS returns to the topic of artificial intelligence in space, bringing in Slingshot Aerospace’s Kelli Furrer and Aerospace’s Manny Gonzalez-Rivero to talk about their respective organizations’ strategic approaches for leveraging and evolving A.I. capabilities.

Furrer described AI’s current role at Slingshot Aerospace. “AI is integrated and everything from our sensor network systems where we are taking in the raw observations with the way we do data fusion and processing to the way we take that that data, we feed it into our SIM systems, and we use AI on top of that. It really is pervasive across our platform,” she said. She emphasized AI’s role as a force multiplier: “It’s not that the AI is doing the work, it’s scaling the amount of work that the humans can do. So if you think about it very simply, we can’t put thousands of analysts in front of screens, but we can’t put AI behind 1000 data feet.”

Gonzalez-Rivero outlined Aerospace’s five-pillar AI strategy. “The first pillar being a focus on AI enable space operations and decision aids,” he explained, covering satellite mission management and real-time anti-jamming. “The second pillar being around trusted AI. How do we make sure that the outcomes that we derives, you know, from these systems can actually be used in safety critical circumstances?” Additional pillars include curating space data sets, upskilling modeling and simulation capabilities with AI, and developing AI solutions for the extreme edge to solve challenges like automatic target recognition.

Both guests addressed the tension between moving quickly and building trust. “Can we actually safely leverage AI in these mission critical spaces? But if we are so worried about that, that we don’t deliver something, then of course everyone will be safe, but we won’t actually meet the challenges of the 21st century,” Gonzalez-Rivero said.

Furrer emphasized the importance of testing environments: “It’s just more exercises, more simulations, more sandboxes and get that, that feedback loop going to the developers.” She stressed that despite AI’s growing capabilities, “the decision is still on the human. And so we, we will not take that out of the equation. It’s too important and especially in this, this domain that we’re talking about.”