Swarming spacecraft to self-destruct for greater good

Image: ESA/Medialab

See original at New Scientist

Students in COSC 180 -- this is a step toward the kind of space exploration we mentioned in class last Thursday -- using many many small devices rather than one large one. The probes described in this article aren't yet "smart dust," but they are a step in that direction.

Also interesting is the behavior described in the article and referred to in the title: self-destruction of individual probes "for the greater good of the collective." Begins to sound a bit like altruistic behavior, no?

"The agency foresees a day when space missions are undertaken not by one large spacecraft but by swarming formations of much smaller, cheaper ones. Such craft could collectively provide a 'floating optics' system for a space telescope comprising separate craft flying in formation, for instance."