ASTRA Center
A component of the TETRAD Institute
The name, ASTRA, embodies the expression of the Center’s mission: the study and practice of Astro-Terrestrial (including Space-Oriented) Cybernetics and Intelligent Engineering Systems.
ASTRA Center has one major Program: ERA - Earth Renaissance Action. This permanent Program comprises two major and ongoing Projects: ASTRIC and Tethys.
ASTRA Center is a key component of the TETRAD Institute and is dedicated to research in cybernetics and engineering systems, especially pertaining to energy, vehicles, habitations, and other structures for space exploration and terraforming and also for application to uses on Earth in extreme environments.
(also known as Asteroid Reconaissance Intervention and Control)
There is within TETTRAD Institute a faculty comprised of Fellows, Mentors, Researchers and Visitors. There is an organizational affiliation with one or multiple universities and other institutes but the institute is independent from any other institution. (The mission and activities are consistent and similar to some of the original motivations and founding ideas of the Institute for Advanced Study, Perimeter, Kavli, and a few others, as well as to the predecessor of TETRAD Institute, the Institute for Innovative Study.)
There are multiple programs and projects in which ASTRA Center is centrally active, each being an engagement in long-term collaborative research and development. There is one Institute Program in which ASTRA is the primary program lead. This is:
(Primary Program Underway = ASTRIC)
- ASTRIC = Astro-Terrestrial Remote Interaction and Control (also its original description: Asteroid Reconnaissance, Intervention and Control). ASTRIC is focused upon cooperative robotics for asteroid (and other space-object) operations including mining, terraforming and trajectory alteration for planetary defense and specifically the avoidance of impact collisions with Earth and other objects in space.
- Current ASTRIC is developing and refining the control and optimization algorithms ands software modules, and the data aggregation and assessment modules, for use with ASTRIC robots which are also now progressing from models into phase-1 prototypes. Contact for up-to-date information and discussion on collaboration.
(Additional Program Activity, in order of engagement attention and involvement)
- TETHYS Project - in tandem with ASTRIC Project, this work is focused upon terrestrial cybernetics, robotics, control systems, and applications pertaining to earth/sea environmental sensing, monitoring and management.
- TETRAD Seminars - series of seminars focused upon topics of foundational physics, biology and the life sciences, psychosocioeconomic dynamics (PSED) and space sciences. ASTRA focus is on space-science and extreme-environment topics.