Spacecraft Don't Trust Their Own Code. Neither Should Your AI Agent.

The article draws parallels between spacecraft autonomous systems and AI agent security. It explains how space standards like ECSS-E-ST-70-11C define four autonomy levels (E1–E4) with increasing authority and safeguards, and how NASA's MAPS architecture uses deterministic systems to override ML subsystems. The author presents Python implementation patterns, starting with tiered authority using IntEnum, to apply these spacecraft-grade authorization controls to AI agents.