AI Predicting Rocket Failures

and hi everyone and welcome back to my segment which is called space spotlight so i'm sanvi panindra your host and i'm super happy that you're here and you get to listen to this today so today we're talking about something that sounds super cool it sounds like it's straight out of a science fiction novel book and i feel like you know a lot of space things are like that but this one is getting real every year So this one is about AI predicting rocket failures, and this is getting super relevant.

And so we're going to be splitting this into two parts.

So in this first part, we're going to be talking about how and why rockets fail and how AI can catch that trouble early.

And in the second part, we'll be talking about what is actually happening right now, what we have going on this year and in the future years.

And I'll also be sharing a bit about the projects that I'm doing of my own.

So let's get into it.

so let's start with a picture imagine this it's launch day the countdown reaches zero and a rocket as tall as a skyscraper lifts off the ground that's huge and the sound shakes your chest and the whole sky just lights up okay Are you imagining it? Well, what you can't see is what's happening inside the rocket.

So these rockets are covered in sensors, hundreds or even thousands of them, and every single second they're measuring things like temperature, pressure, and vibration.

And engineers watch these numbers stream on by their screens like a non-stop heartbeat monitor for like the whole vehicle.

And here's the thing.

Sometimes the difference between a perfect launch and a disaster is one tiny number changing innovate that no one expected.

So why are rockets so hard to get right? Think about the conditions.

Inside an engine, fuel is burning at thousands of degrees.

Fuel and oxygen are rushing through pipes at enormous pressure.

Pumps are spinning incredibly fast.

And just the whole machine is shaking so hard that even anything like a slightly weak or loose part can become a problem.

A tiny crack, a weak seal, a valve that opens a fraction of a second too late.

Any of those things...

And they all matter.

So to add to this, a rocket is not like a car, right? So if you have something wrong with your car, you pull it over, you see what's wrong.

You can't pull over a rocket if something feels wrong.

And once it's flying, there's no mechanic on board to fix it.

That's why engineers are so careful before launch and why the test engines are on the ground again and again.

History has had some hard lessons about this, unfortunately.

Before the Space Shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, engineers had already seen damage to the rubber seals in the rocket boosters on earlier flights.