Assurance of Model-Based Autonomy for Robotic Space Missions

NASA’s robotic space missions must make use of on-board automation and autonomy to control themselves when communication with Earth is slow (due to light-time delays across the solar system) or unavailable. As mission concepts become more ambitious, increasingly capable forms of autonomy are required - ones that go well beyond executing a single preformulated script. Assurance of autonomy - the means by which would-be mission proposers, reviewers and managers will be provided the confidence to trust their expensive assets to autonomous control - is a challenging necessity.