Booz Allen Hamilton: Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation and Meta Successfully Demonstrate AI Vision Language Model for Space

Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation and Meta announced the development and successful demonstration of a novel AI-powered tech stack, accelerated by NVIDIA CUDA GPUs, to support critical work on the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab. This effort is believed to be the first of its kind, setting the stage for space exploration and operations across a variety of disconnected environments. The goal in building the tech stack - dubbed "Space Llama" - is to not only replace paper documents onboard the ISS National Lab, but also decrease reliance on instructions received from the ground while deployed at the edge. The result will be lower costs, less computing power required, and faster outcomes when responding to onboard anomalies or maintenance issues, without depending on Earth-bound internet. Space Llama evolves and builds upon successful efforts by Booz Allen to deploy and operate the first known large language model (LLM) in space. This moment sees the new addition of a fine-tuned version of Meta's Llama vision AI capabilities (recently made available to US government agencies and private sector partners) to help process and interpret images and text at the farthest reaches of space. This allows users to quickly and reliably access essential technical references, manuals, and instructions leveraging the power of generative and vision AI to address on-board issues at speed. The Space Llama tech stack, undertaken as internal research and development, is comprised of Booz Allen's modular open architecture platform A2E2?? (AI for Edge Environments) and a fine-tuned versionof Meta's Llama 3.2, using Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-2 and NVIDIA CUDA software. The result: a compact, energy-efficient system similar to those used in satellites that can be deployed locally on the ISS National Lab without requiring power, communication or computation from Earth. This design - open architecture to ensure flexibility in solution design, now and in the future - results in lower costs and strong technical performance, in addition to enabling predictive maintenance and faster repairs, free up users to do mission critical work. Space Llama demonstrates the possible in terms of AI's impact at the deepest edge of space, in addition to the versatility of LLM-based technology across a variety of environments with denied, disrupted, intermittent, and limited bandwidth. In addition to fostering greater scientific research and discovery in space, this innovation could also result in positive outcomes for industries including oil and gas, autonomy, government, energy, and the re-use of legacy technology through edge software modifications. Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation and Meta announced the development and successful demonstration of a novel AI-powered tech stack, accelerated by NVIDIA CUDA GPUs, to support critical work on the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab. This effort is believed to be the first of its kind, setting the stage for space exploration and operations across a variety of disconnected environments. The goal in building the tech stack - dubbed "Space Llama" - is to not only replace paper documents onboard the ISS National Lab, but also decrease reliance on instructions received from the ground while deployed at the edge. The result will be lower costs, less computing power required, and faster outcomes when responding to onboard anomalies or maintenance issues, without depending on Earth-bound internet. Space Llama evolves and builds upon successful efforts by Booz Allen to deploy and operate the first known large language model (LLM) in space. This moment sees the new addition of a fine-tuned version of Meta's Llama vision AI capabilities (recently made available to US government agencies and private sector partners) to help process and interpret images and text at the farthest reaches of space. This allows users to quickly and reliably access essential technical references, manuals, and instructions leveraging the power of generative and vision AI to address on-board issues at speed. The Space Llama tech stack, undertaken as internal research and development, is comprised of Booz Allen's modular open architecture platform A2E2?? (AI for Edge Environments) and a fine-tuned versionof Meta's Llama 3.2, using Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-2 and NVIDIA CUDA software. The result: a compact, energy-efficient system similar to those used in satellites that can be deployed locally on the ISS National Lab without requiring power, communication or computation from Earth. This design - open architecture to ensure flexibility in solution design, now and in the future - results in lower costs and strong technical performance, in addition to enabling predictive maintenance and faster repairs, free up users to do mission critical work. Space Llama demonstrates the possible in terms of AI's impact at the deepest edge of space, in addition to the versatility of LLM-based technology across a variety of environments with denied, disrupted, intermittent, and limited bandwidth. In addition to fostering greater scientific research and discovery in space, this innovation could also result in positive outcomes for industries including oil and gas, autonomy, government, energy, and the re-use of legacy technology through edge software modifications.