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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now part of everyday life and it is playing a larger role in the satellite industry. Recently, Slingshot Aerospace revealed details of working with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S. to create a new AI system, called Agatha, that identifies anomalous spacecraft within large satellite constellations. It also shows a willingness of the U.S. Government to embrace AI in commercial solutions also.

Dylan Kesler, director of Data Science and AI for Slingshot Aerospace, spoke to Via Satellite about Agatha, as well as the broader AI question in the satellite industry. He believes AI is becoming somewhat of a necessity, given how proliferated space is becoming.

“To really tackle the magnitude of looking at constellations we needed something like AI that can handle not only the objects and their maneuvers but also the inter-relationships between those objects,” Kesler says. “If you think about how those constellations operate, all the satellites usually have cooperative missions they are going to be working on. To evaluate how those satellites are inter-acting with one another and interacting with the other ground-based assets, that requires some focus on the magnitude of AI.”

Slingshot Aerospace has been working on analytics and ML focused things since the inception of the company. In 2020, Slingshot Aerospace started doing projects in the realm of ML and computer vision. Kesler says the company has been working in the AI realm for at least two years.

What are the opportunities for Slingshot Aerospace to sell solutions like Agatha to commercial entities, as well as government agencies? Kesler says Agatha can provide information about the behaviors and operations of space objects for commercial operators and governments with millions and billions of dollars of assets in space.

Slingshot Aerospace has doubled down on its AI and ML applications, both internally and externally. Kesler believes things like Agatha are just the tip of the iceberg.

He adds, “One of the important things that is coming around with AI is that it is being applied in places where we don’t necessarily see it. Agatha is front facing so we are very aware of it, but there also will be applications wherein AI provides benefits in the background. For example, we have a GSN sensor network where we are collecting electro-optical observations of space and AI has an application inside of that, as well as the front-facing application where it becomes a tool for users.”

Slingshot Aerospace has been a fast-emerging company in the satellite space. It provides government and commercial partners around the world with AI-powered solutions for satellite tracking, space traffic coordination, and space modeling and simulation. Its Slingshot platform aims to transform disparate space data into a common operating picture of the space domain by leveraging advanced space object tracking, AI, astrodynamics and data fusion.

In terms of the potential revenue generating capabilities of Agatha, Kesler says, “AI is part of the suite we are working on. It is running in the Slingshot platform itself as a piece of software that we use. It is running on data from the Slingshot Global Sensor Network. We do have new directions that we are focused on as well. Agatha is just the beginning, and we have new ideas of what we can do with the technology. It is one of the products that is generating new insights and tools that we are working on. It is not necessarily a static thing, but rather part of the suite of tools that we have.”

One of the broader questions is whether AI will be a force for good in the satellite industry. Clearly, there are benefits, but given that space assets are coming more under attack, there are clearly dangers.

“AI is another set of tools and applications. It is very advanced. There are opportunities for AI to complete the operations we are working on in space as it provides information that is not as tractable to a human operator observing it. AI is bringing many information streams together providing operators with a better operational picture,” Kesler says. “There are opportunities where people might use AI like any other tool for nefarious means. It is one of the tools that has great promise to benefit us. It is a huge amount of data and assets working together that requires something like AI to handle the information streams coming out of that.”

Kesler thinks there is a certain inevitability about AI, as without these kinds of tools, dealing with the amount of data that is coming out of space and the speed in which things are interacting in space would become impossible. “Space isn’t a location that is physically easily accessible. We are going to have to rely on AI to work within space. There have been plans for multiple constellations. It is fortuitous that we have the tools with AI right now to integrate into that. Space would be much more challenging if we didn’t have these tools,” he says.

Kesler sees “huge potential” in the satellite industry for AI.

“I think there is massive potential for AI in space because we are working with massive, massive datasets so we need something that can interpret and work with those datasets. These are operations away from Earth. They are not as trackable as something that is right in front of us. So, having systems that understand what is happening away from Earth is important also. Like all industries, there is opportunity for AI to help advance what we are doing in space,” he says.