🤖 AI Insights from the Brains at SpaceNews 🧠

👋 This week in SpaceNext: AI, Proteus Space is making headlines with its new partnership with SAIC to launch its first AI-designed satellite in 2025.

Meanwhile, Aptos Orbital introduced a modular AI-driven device for space-based processing and communications, leveraging its partnership with Amazon Web Services to bring advanced AI capabilities to satellite operators.

Not everybody is full-steam ahead when it comes to injecting AI into satellite manufacturing, however. As SpaceNews Silicon Valley correspondent Debra Werner reported from the Satellite Innovation conference in Mountain View, California, this week, some are taking a more cautious approach, citing concerns about data security and reliability.

Ad Astra et Ultra, Cum AI 🤖🚀

— Brian Berger, SpaceNews editor-in-chief

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Proteus Space and SAIC partner to accelerate AI-designed satellites

Proteus Space is gearing up to launch its first AI-designed satellite in 2025, thanks to a new partnership with government contractor SAIC.

This partnership, backed by an investment from SAIC, will accelerate the development of Proteus' Mercury platform, which autonomously designs custom satellite buses tailored to specific payloads.

The collaboration aims to reduce the time from satellite design to launch, providing increased precision and flexibility for both government and commercial space operators.

With the Mercury platform, Proteus is betting big on AI's ability to automate and optimize satellite design, potentially shaving months off development timelines. With its strategic partnership with SAIC and the upcoming launch of its AI-designed satellite, here's a closer look at Proteus Space:

🔍Proteus At a Glance:

• Founded: 2021
• Location: Los Angeles

• Key Advisers:
• Kim Crider (retired USAF Major General, first CTO of U.S. Space Force)

• James "Hondo" Geurts (former Assistant Secretary of the Navy)
• VeraLinn "Dash" Jamieson (retired USAF Lieutenant General, former Director of USAF ISR and Cyber Effects Enterprise)

• Key Investors: Lavrock Ventures, Moonshots Capital, SAIC, Veteran Fund

• Marketing Strategy: Offers free preliminary satellite designs to qualified customers, leveraging its AI-powered Mercury platform to speed up satellite design and launch.

🚀Aptos Orbital brings AI and cloud computing to space

This week, Aptos Orbital introduced a modular, AI-driven device for space-based processing, communications, and cloud services. Offered in two versions—Mini for cubesats and Max for larger satellites—the device has logged five years of cumulative processing time in orbit.

Key Features:

• Space-hardened compute and persistent communication for real-time data processing.
• Available via a subscription model for satellite operators.
• Designed to eliminate communication gaps and improve mission efficiency.

"Our goal is to make satellites as intelligent and accessible as any computer on Earth," said Yonatan Winetraub, co-founder. Partnering with Amazon Web Services, Aptos aims to transform satellite operations with advanced AI capabilities.

AI in Manufacturing: Caution vs. Innovation

While Aptos and Proteus charge ahead with AI, two satellite builders with numerous spacecraft already in orbit were more circumspect about what AI can and can't do at present.

Speaking at Satellite Innovation this week, Blue Canyon Technologies and Kongsberg NanoAvionics officials said they are cautiously exploring AI for satellite manufacturing, particularly focusing on data security concerns. Both see AI's potential for analyzing large datasets but are wary of data sources and cybersecurity risks.

🗨️"When you're trying to teach an AI machine, where does your data go? There's also a concern about pulling in data from external applications. Where do they come from?" — Chris Winslett, General Manager, Blue Canyon Technologies

🗨️"How can you trust what you're getting? What's the source? If you're aggregating results, are you getting the results that you want?" — Karolis Senvaitis, Engineering Operations Director, Kongsberg NanoAvionics

While both satellite builders acknowledge AI's potential to process large datasets, they are holding off on full-scale implementation until security and reliability issues are resolved.

Meanwhile, Machina Labs, an L.A. startup focused on using robotic technology and AI to enhance manufacturing processes, particularly in metal tooling, says it's embracing AI by generating its own in-house data. By using robots and sensors, Machina Labs creates real-time data, allowing the company to avoid external security risks. This self-generated data, they said, improves manufacturing efficiency while reducing the likelihood of defects.

🗨️"We're just scratching the surface, because now we have concrete data that can be used and leveraged to optimize processes and reduce any kind of quality defects for future parts." — John Borrego, Vice President of Production, Machina Labs

💡What do you think? Is the cautious approach the right one? Drop us a line here.

🐍 Sound Byte

"Imagine an alternate universe in which people don't have words for different forms of transportation—only the collective noun 'vehicle.' They use that word to refer to cars, buses, bikes, spacecraft, and all other ways of getting from place A to place B...Now replace the word 'vehicle' with 'artificial intelligence,' and we have a pretty good description of the world we live in."

— AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference, by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor (Princeton University Press, September 2024)

LMV is Lockheed Martin's Venture Capital arm, and about a third of its portfolio is invested in space. Some of its most notable space Investments include launchers Rocket Lab and ABL Space.

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