Technology being developed at the Turing Institute in Glasgow will allow satellites, space planes and space stations to learn to cope with the unexpected, including equipment failure and atmospheric changes. This will allow Hotol to learn from its own experience, improving and adjusting flight performance as flight conditions change or things go wrong. Although modern control theory for spacecraft is fine as long as nothing unpredicted happens, it cannot always cope with turbulence, if sensors fail or parts of the craft fall off.
Balance is also very important for spacecraft and for satellites in orbit.
The work on Hotol, which will take off and land from airport runways, concentrates on machine learning for its initial ascent into space. The concept, Professor Michie says, can also be applied to satellites subjected to unforeseeable fluctuations in solar winds and changes in air density. On large craft the huge solar panels could also be a source of instability. The project is being launched by British Aerospace, which in spite of the Government's lack of support, has kept a large team on the Hotol project. The contract is the first signed under the Hotol Enabling Technology Club programme, which involves a group of companies which feel that software developed for Hotol could be valuable in other industrial areas.