Illustration of autonomous satellites. Credit: NASA
Illustration of autonomous satellites. Credit: NASA

Every new space mission runs into the same wall: physics and fragility. Physics, because the speed of light and contested spectrum make real-time decision-making from the ground impossible when you need it most. Fragility, because modern space systems are software-defined, interconnected, and therefore exposed to radiation-induced faults, cascading anomalies and increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

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Miguel A. Lopez-Medina is Founder and CEO of America Data Science New York (ADSNY) and Senior Artificial Intelligence Researcher Engineer at Rice University. He develops edge-to-cloud AI frameworks for resilient and autonomous space operations.