Attitudes towards Autonomous Data Collection and Analysis in the Planetary Science Community

As missions are planned to targets further away from Earth, it becomes all but required to increase the role of autonomy in the mission. An investigation of what aspects of mission operations and decision making autonomy will be accepted in by the planetary science community is thus required to aid in development planning. This paper presents a data set collected regarding attitudes towards autonomous data collection and analysis in the planetary science community and initial analysis of this data. A survey, conducted at the 2013 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, asked respondents to identify whether or not they would accept conclusions drawn by autonomous data collection techniques and what factors would impact this acceptance. It also looked at the acceptance of computers and computer software in the data collection and analysis process.

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