[t0mas88]

Imagine explaining to the court that the passengers were blown up by your AI algorithm...

I expect these things are only on test flights indeed.

[krisoft]

> Imagine explaining to the court that the passengers were blown up by your AI algorithm...

Autonomous flight termination systems are not "AI". It uses an on-board GPS and INS to figure out where the rocket is. It applies a pre-defined set of rules to the state vector and if any one of the rules fail it terminates the flight. You can read more about them here: https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2019/valencia.pdf

[ben_w]

GOFAI is still AI in my books.

*old man shouts at The Cloud*

[krisoft]

Okay, but then I assume you also call AI the model predictive controller flying and landing the rocket too?

An other question if you don’t mind: Did you ever used software which was not AI in your view?

[anovikov]

It's not AI at all. It just has preset border conditions in terms of flight corridor and probably, predicted/calculated impact point if engines go out at that moment, and blows rocket up if they are violated. It's hard logic, comparison of some variables with set thresholds, not some "thinking".

[ikari_pl]

Heuristics used to be AI. Now only chat gpt is ai

[sroussey]

Hopefully no GPS jammers nearby.

[krisoft]

Yes. I'm sure they apply all the mitigations possible.

Worth mentioning that the previous state of the art solution relied on a radio link too. Not sure if it was an implementation where jamming could led to flight termination, or where jamming could lead to failure to terminate a flight. But jamming, and resistance to it, was a concern even before autonomous flight termination.

[dotnet00]

A bit hard to GPS jam a rocket on the way up.

[WJW]

If I were writing such a system it would have very straightforward if-statements linked directly to FAA requirements. No faffy AI stuff is needed.

[dave78]

I'm pretty sure Falcon 9 carrying crew has an AFTS. Challenger was destroyed by an FTS system as well despite having crew on board. I think it's just a risk you have to take to go on a rocket ride.

[KineticLensman]

> Challenger was destroyed by an FTS system

No. The shuttle broke up when the overall stack became unstable due to the right hand SRB separating because a strut that attached it to the external tank failed (due to a blowtorch effect from a failed O-ring). The Challenger orbiter ended up 'on top' and broke into several chunks - without involvement of any FTS - because of the aerodynamic stress (one of these chunks was the crew compartment). The SRBs were destroyed by their FTS systems, but this was more than 30 seconds after Challenger broke up. The ET simply disintegrated.

[Edit] added emphasis that the orbiter break-up (and destruction) was not due to any FTS.

[dave78]

I'm very aware of why it initially broke up. But once that started, the range safety officer did activate the FTS system.

The point is that rockets carrying crew do indeed have FTS systems - presence of a crew doesn't negate that need.

[ben_w]

The SRBs (and the EFTs) had FTS's, but the Orbiters didn't.

[BobaFloutist]

>the range safety officer did activate the FTS system.

That doesn't sound very automatic.

[ceejayoz]

The Crew Dragon capsule has escape rockets that will fire as part of the flight termination system to carry the crew safely away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Dragon_In-Flight_Abort_Te...