Japan's space agency enlists train operator's AI to foresee in-orbit failures

Japan's space agency JAXA has teamed up with West Japan Railway Company to apply the latter's AI-powered failure-prediction technology to operating spacecraft. The pair have worked together since October 2022, but have enlisted another player – satellite operator SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation – in hopes the trio can predict …

[Pascal Monett]

Why not ?

If they have something that is actually working, then why not apply it to another domain where it could be useful ?

It's not because it's called AI that it is automatically useless, after all. I'm sure Nippon scientists are going to make it work and, when they do, it will certainly be beneficial for all satellites. Corporate secrets (or National Security) aside, I'm sure every satellite managing company would like to have advanced warning of when things might go wrong.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Why not ?

The difference is in space nobody can hear you repair...

Unlike trains, which are generally repairable.

[Julz]

It

Will predict that the AE-35 unit will go one hundred percent failure in 72 hours...

[Richard 12]

Space junk didn't cause those losses

The net loss to insurers was $438 million - $995 million paid out on premiums of $557 million.

The loss was entirely due to two individual launches:

- $445 million claim for ViaSsat-3 Americas, when the launcher failed.

- $348 million claim for 6-F2 communications satellite when the batteries failed.

If those two individual losses hadn't happened, it would have been a $202 million profit - a massive 36% margin.

But that's the entire business of insurance. If they don't want to accept the risk of occasionally paying out more than the premium then they aren't insurers, they're thieves.

Insurance is a long term bet. Some years you lose, most years you win.

The 2024 premium of around 10% insured value is insane, and will simply cause even greater losses for insurers as only the highest risk satellites will be insured at all.