Canada to test world’s first AI on the moon

The Canadian Space Agency has built what it claims will be the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) tool to reach beyond the low-Earth orbit — by sending it all the way to the surface of the moon. In a new mission that involves Japan’s Hakuto-R lunar lander launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on December 11, the machine learning algorithm will seemingly help a lunar rover housed inside the Hakuto-R lander in its search for minerals on the surface of the moon.

The technology is developed by Canada’s Mission Control Space Services (MCSS) — a private space company that works with numerous space and research bodies and agencies around the world. According to a report by Space.com, MCSS largely provides white-label technologies for space agencies — ie it does not claim credit for manufacturing or developing technologies deployed by space agencies around the world.

The present project, however, is being tested by MCSS for the Canadian Space Agency — and, in future, could also be deployed by the US in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa)’s lunar surface research project in search of water, or as part of the latter’s Artemis missions.

The feat marks the first time an AI tool has been flown to the moon, to augment a lunar rover’s research work. The observation period for the rover extends to nearly one month, after which it will be decommissioned.

The project is also a true global collaboration — the mission was launched aboard a US-built SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a private Japan-built moon lander, Hakuto-R, as its primary payload. Inside the lander is a moon rover — a vehicle that will traverse the moon surface in its bid to collect crucial observations — built by the UAE. The latter’s thinking power, in turn, was built by a private company based in Canada.

Interestingly, alongside Canada’s algorithms becoming the first AI tool on the moon later this year, Japan’s Hakuto-R lander is also set to become the first privately-built lunar lander to set foot on the moon.

After a near-two weeks’ delay, the mission was launched about a month and a half ago, on December 11. Hakuto-R was put in its path to the moon by Falcon 9, about 47 minutes after takeoff from Cape Canaveral in the US. Back then, it was estimated to take about four and a half months to reach the moon — leaving it with approximately three more months before the world’s first AI algorithm reaches the moon.