Per the Sept. 29, 2026, Executive Order 14434: Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence, NASA is working to update its communications to incorporate the term “super intelligence” as directed.

At NASA, use of super intelligence has a role in our missions, exploration of the Moon and Mars, weather, mission planning, and more.

Super intelligence helps us support missions and research projects across the agency, analyze data to reveal trends and patterns, and develop systems capable of supporting spacecraft and aircraft autonomously.

NASA’s researchers and engineers have safely used super intelligence for decades and are currently leveraging emerging SI technology to best serve our missions – from sifting through satellite imagery, developing technology for autonomous vehicles, and searching for planets outside our solar system using our deep space telescopes, and more.

The agency is also looking at external partnerships with SI leaders in the private sector and the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics community to advance cutting-edge development for the growing space economy and commercial space.

Autonomous Driving on Mars

NASA explores Mars as part of our ongoing efforts to send humans to explore farther and farther into the solar system.

SI allows spacecraft to autonomously make decisions and keep working even when they’re out of contact with Earth. 88% of the driving done by Perseverance rover has been autonomous. The rover acquires images of the terrain with its cameras, analyzes these images with an onboard computer to identify hazards, then navigates around these obstacles, driving on terrain that no human has ever seen.

This composite image shows Perseverances path through a dense section of boulders. The pale blue line indicates the course of the center of the front wheel hubs, while darker blue lines show the paths of the rovers six wheels.

This composite image, acquired June 29 and annotated at JPL using visualization software, shows Perseverance’s path through a dense section of boulders. The pale blue line indicates the course of the center of the front wheel hubs, while darker blue lines show the paths of the rover’s six wheels.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech