Space Blockchain: Ethereum Structure to Be Used by NASA
TechnologyBit News Today1 min read
NASA has awarded a three-year, $330,000 grant to the University of Akron to research how Ethereum blockchain technology can enhance space communications and navigation. The goal is to give unmanned space probes the automatic decision-making technologies to prioritize tasks and protect against space debris with no need for communication from Earth.
Dr. Jin Wei Kocsis, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will lead the NASA-backed research, which the university announced in an official release. Her team will focus on creating blockchain-based "smart contracts" for the space probes. These smart contracts would allow spacecraft to execute actions autonomously rather than waiting hours to receive responses from Earth.
As unmanned spacecraft travel farther into deep space, transmission times grow longer, creating communication delays between probes and scientists on Earth.
If successful, the project could ease communication bottlenecks over long distances while allowing probes to gather more data and giving scientists more time to analyze it. Many missions rely on human operators on Earth to interpret limited incoming information and transmit back instructions. By using blockchain-enhanced decision-making, probes could automatically perform tasks and evade space debris far faster than humans on Earth could instruct them to.
Ongoing Research
However, a great deal of foundational work remains. NASA expects this approach to result in a more responsive, resilient, and scalable network that optimizes space communications.
Thomas Kacpura, an advanced communications program manager at NASA Glenn, says the technology would support decentralized processing - in other words, some degree of on board decision making. Ultimately, the mission is to develop communication technologies built for next-generation spacecraft - and to find applications in commercial systems as well.
