Autonomous Mission Manager for Space Superiority and Responsive Space

The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of producing an onboard autonomous mission manager for space superiority and responsive space.  Experts in data fusion, autonomous flight software, and maneuver planning will define the architecture for a modular, re-usable mission manager for Defensive Counterspace and demonstrate a prototype autonomous flight system for detecting and responding to a co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) threat.  Three autonomous software components will be addressed: abnormal event detection and assessment, threat countermeasure and evasive maneuver planning, and mission flight software for autonomous task sequence execution.  Components will adhere to the Dual Node Network (DNN) technical architecture to enable extendable software uploads and be designed to work within the limited computational and memory resources on-board a satellite.  Key features of the proposed system include a) enhanced scalability through modularity; b) robust, retrainable event detection and assessment software; c) innovative maneuver planning techniques that account for future actions of an uncooperative ASAT threat; d) improved verification and validation through the use of common ground and flight components; and e) reduced development risk through flight and operational heritage.   BENEFIT: The primary markets for the integrated mission manager are military and national security space.  These entities are explicitly involved in the SSA and DCS missions so can directly benefit from deploying the autonomous situation awareness and threat response software on any or all deployed satellites.  The successful demonstration of the mission manager as part of a flight system in Phase 3 would open up these markets. A secondary market is commercial and civil space.   DF&NN has experience commercializing the results of SSA-focused SBIRs.  An example of this is the SAS Neural Network Abnormality Detection & Recognition (NNADR) system that DF&NN has delivered for real-time satellite operations at SOC-96. NNADR detects out of pattern temporal abnormalities that are well within normal limits, thus reducing the number of false alarms and increasing sensitivity.  The DF&NN commercialization strategy is to bring the proposed technology to market via licensed software. During its existing JSARS SBIR Phase II, DF&NN has already marketed our satellite-as-a-sensor (SAS) Blue Force Status (BFS) and Abnormal Catalog Update (ACU) software products to SMC and ESC, respectively.