In a warehouse in Washington, DC, Lockheed Martin today unveiled two new technologies and outlined a vision for a bustling space community by the middle of the century.
Called "Destination: Space 2050," the exhibit put on by the company featured futuristic concepts for missions like space defense and included a presentation of a self-adapting autonomous system and field-tested quantum capabilities.
Lockheed executives said they intended the event to serve as an opportunity for industry and government to offer feedback and eventually forge partnerships to spearhead technological innovations that will enable mankind to expand into the solar system and beyond.
“We're looking at ways to partner with folks that may be ahead of us,” Lockheed Martin Space Executive Vice President Robert Lightfoot told the audience. “As we look at this, we're not going to have all the right answers here, so we really want this to be a dialogue.”
The event outlined five key focus areas for new technological development, all housed in individual exhibits: a smart world, which examines near-future concepts like advanced recycling and vertical farming; extraplanetary operations, where attendees could build their own lunar base; space logistics, which focused on debris remediation and space traffic management; mission operations command, an exploration of how artificial intelligence can help decision makers react to natural and man-made threats; and a wargame-like setup in a booth on space defense.
After giving attendees an opportunity to mill around the museum and offer feedback, Lockheed executives announced the new AI and quantum computing systems.
The AI system relies on a technique called causal and reinforcement learning, or CARL for short, according to Lockheed AI researcher Eric Dixon.
“We're in the process of developing an AI capability that can perform complex reasoning in an environment using observations and interventional feedback,” Dixon said of the CARL system, which he said has applications ranging from remote sensing to exploration in harsh, unfamiliar environments that the AI can adjust to autonomously.
“Early next year, we intend to demonstrate an operational version of an autonomous anomaly resolution capability that detects irregularities, determines cause and resolves the anomalous condition on an environment without human support,” Dixon added.
The company also disclosed it had successfully tested quantum communications capabilities that have the potential to reduce power requirements, which could in turn allow space systems to operate more efficiently and securely.
Lockheed is testing the quantum computing capabilities through a set of “building blocks,” company Senior Fellow Joe Buck said during the event. The company plans to continue communications testing, with the goal of implementing quantum storage for a “super additive receiver” by the end of 2024, Buck added.
Speaking to Inside Defense, Buck said the threshold for a deployable capability is whether it could be engineered in a miniaturized satellite known as a Cubesat.
“It's really in the next couple of years that you're going to be able to have systems that will get the benefits of this,” Buck said, adding that the company’s goal is to conduct demonstrations of the technology in on-orbit systems within the next few years.
Many underlying technologies needed for the five initiatives require far greater maturity, and some goals for space travel outlined by the company -- such as robotic construction of an internationally supported base on Mars by 2048 -- seem further off than three decades.
Lockheed executives stated significant challenges still exist to fielding many of the technologies required for their concepts, but proper resources and coordination could make many goals achievable on the 2050 timeline.
“From a technological point of view, I don't think there's anything you're going to see here today that is not achievable in this kind of timeframe, which is different to say that we are going to achieve all of those,” Lockheed Advanced Technology Center Vice President Nelson Pedreiro told Inside Defense.
Pedreiro added that logistics capabilities envisioned by the company, such as nuclear reactors that can wirelessly transmit energy to satellites, will require greater development. However, he viewed the “smart world” technologies as sufficiently mature.
“We already have a lot of [that] technology,” Pedreiro said. “You can actually detect fire as soon as it starts before it becomes large. And by measuring the winds, which we can do, and measure moisture content and vegetation type through hyperspectral sensors, you can actually predict how fast and where” a fire is going to move, he said as an example.
The event also expressed something senior officials have recently warned the United States is lacking: a “whole-of-nation” vision that lays out a clear and coherent strategy to lead in space.
In a State of the Space Industrial Base report published in August, representatives from the Air Force, Space Force, Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Innovation Unit wrote that China is aiming to eclipse the United States in the race for space dominance by 2045, with a set framework for how to do so that U.S. officials have yet to promulgate.
Noting that China’s autocratic system of government can allow the country to move faster on its objectives without needing to accommodate democratic debate, Pedreiro said it may take the United States “a little longer” in some areas, but that the process would "produce better results."
“Maybe the report is correct,” he said of the possible lack of an overarching vision for space in the United States. “But we are in a journey to create that.”