With Booz Allen’s support, the ISS and future manned space systems are positioned to benefit from LLM capabilities that augment human expertise and directly support research and exploration activities. While there is never a complete replacement for an astronaut-in-the-loop, we believe instantaneous human augmentation with an LLM RAG can help astronauts, and other terrestrial–based experts in constrained, stressed environments, achieve their missions.
Our on-board LLM is designed to streamline worker access to vetted technical knowledge and create opportunities for faster, more accurate decisions. What’s more, the LLM provides the basis for future innovations, such as a personalized, virtual, subject-matter expertise that users can carry in their pockets; multimodal AI tools; and meshed LLMs that provide automated decision support in complex scenarios.
U.S. intelligence community and DOD organizations are also interested in using AI to perform inference and analysis on board satellite buses in ways that augment ground-based analysis. Driving this mission requirement are the compute, latency, and bandwidth limitations that also exist on the ISS.
Responding to this mission challenge, Booz Allen is strategically investing to continue developing, training, and deploying AI/machine learning algorithms and LLMs tailored for specific applications in satellite operations. In line with evolving space technology needs, these applications include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); software-defined architecture (SDA); mission management/command and control (MM/C2); and autonomous maneuvers.
When milliseconds matter and resilience is a deterrent, on-board edge AI capabilities like these can reduce two-way latency from minutes to nanoseconds and increase bandwidth speed 1,000-fold, potentially making the difference for mission success.
