Whenever I made plots for my work on neural networks, they were always flat and boring. Then, a few weeks ago, I had an idea for visualizing a neural network “thinking” through a problem as it was solving it. Using my work on artificial intelligence to control interplanetary trajectories, I created up the following gif.…
A few month’s ago Primer, a great youtube channel that you should check out, posted the following question on Twitter Before I go over my thinking and then show some numerical simulations, take a moment and think it over. If you’ve already got the answer you can check out other numerical probability puzzles here. My…
Last week in my lab’s journal club I was presenting on two white papers detailing the reasoning for possible missions to explore the outer solar system. These papers are part of the Astro2020 decadal survey, and I figured I would share some thoughts on them here. As both papers are short (<10 pages each) and…
A few weeks ago I attended the 2019 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics Specialists Conference (ASC). This was my first major academic conference in grad school and I was there presenting on my research on using neural networks for optimal control with a special focus on their resilience to missed thrust events. Where Was I? The Astrodynamics Specialist…
Space is Hard From ionizing radiation to micrometeoroids, space is a dangerous place. Most spacecraft, when they feel threatened, can autonomously enter into a protective operating mode call safe mode. Different spacecraft do different things in safe mode, but most turn off all non-essential components, like propulsion and the payload, to focus all energy on…
