Mission Control Space Services Inc.|Mission Control Space Services Inc.

Purpose

In 2003, NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, began exploring the surface of the red planet. While both rovers performed for longer than expected, Spirit's mission ended in 2009 when the rover became stuck in a soft patch of soil. Rovers can autonomously detect and avoid rocks and other obstacles with ease, but detecting soft soil hazards remains a challenge for rover operators. While Opportunity is still operating, it has lost mission time while stuck in soft soil patches. The Autonomous Soil Assessment System 2.0 (ASAS), building upon previous work by Mission Control Space Services, will improve rovers' ability to navigate through unknown environments by detecting a much broader variety of terrains and hazard types through the use of artificial intelligence, and specifically deep learning techniques. ASAS can be employed to improve mission safety and efficiency in two ways: by running on ground station computers to help rover operators plan safe routes, or by operating in real time as a software payload onboard the rover to increase its autonomy by allowing it to handle hazard detection automatically.