Self-driving spacecraft may save Earth from doomsday

Hera uses infrared to scan impact crater. Judging by the valuations of companies such as Waymo, Lyft and Uber, humanity is placing a big bet on self-driving cars as the future of transportation. But the future of humanity itself may rest on the hopes of self-driving spacecraft. The European Space Agency is currently developing a self-driving craft for its Hera planetary defense mission to the Didymos asteroid, which could happen as soon as 2023. "If you think self-driving cars are the future on Earth, then Hera is the pioneer of autonomy in deep space," Paolo Martino, lead systems engineer of ESA's proposed Hera mission, said in a statement.