Next-generation spacecraft control

A description is given of some advanced spacecraft control applications. The Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) has decision-making software that gives each of its instruments some discretion as to what it observes, as well as a local area network over which one instrument can alert the rest to a special event. The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency, relies on artificial intelligence in ground-based software to schedule when it is to view some object, while onboard control systems let it find and track targets with a precision finer than systems on earth. In the probe the Galileo spacecraft will release into Jupiter´s atmosphere, the electronics are engineered to survive forces up to 350 times the Earth´s gravity and heat as great as on the Sun´s surface.<>