Waltham, MA-based Raytheon announced on November 19 that it is designing Pit Boss, an autonomous mission management system for DARPA’s Blackjack satellite constellation, with prime Scientific Systems company, Incorporated.
The Blackjack
constellation will operate in low Earth orbit. It will network sensors together
with a goal to provide persistent global coverage for many applications,
including missile warning. Pit Boss aims to use an advanced
architecture, processors and encryption to autonomously collect and process
data from the entire Blackjack constellation. It is also envisioned to be able
to incorporate future advanced algorithms, including artificial intelligence
and machine learning.
“Pit
Boss connects the brains of each Blackjack satellite, making it one
exceptionally smart, networked system,” said Mike Rokaw, director for
Raytheon Space Systems. “Rather than sending data down to a ground station
for processing, which takes time we don’t have, Pit Boss will send
data from space straight to the right operator at the right time.”
While each
individual Blackjack sensor can perform onboard processing, Pit
Boss is the data collection and processing data hub. By fusing the sensor
data together, decision-making speeds up, transitioning from what is known as
operator-in-the-loop to operator-on-the-loop methodology.
“Self-knowing satellites are the next step in autonomous space-based mission planning,” said Rokaw. “And, this isn’t limited to missile warning and defense. Future constellation management systems will migrate to this type of methodology.”
Source: Raytheon
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