Magazine Article

Software for Automated Planning of Spacecraft Missions

TBMG-3408

06/01/2002

Abstract
Content

An artificial-intelligence computer program generates and evaluates plans for spacecraft missions subject to constraints associated with spacecraft designs. The input to the program includes spacecraft design parameters (e.g., slew rates and battery capacities) and mission parameters (e.g., requested scientific observations, frequency of communication passes, and trajectory). The program generates a mission-activity plan for attaining mission goals without violating constraints (e.g., for making all desired observations within the available time). The program makes it possible to perform rapid evaluations of multiple candidate designs against a given mission scenario by generating plans for each design and automatically evaluating them against objective criteria. Alternatively, the program can also be used to perform “what-if” evaluations. This program can be used early in the spacecraft-design and spacecraft-mission- planning process, thereby helping to ensure that a spacecraft design and mission plan are consistent with each other; more specifically, the program can show how a given design can be expected to perform in a given mission scenario, and on the basis of the program output, one can modify the design and/or the mission to improve performance.

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Citation
"Software for Automated Planning of Spacecraft Missions," Mobility Engineering, June 1, 2002.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Jun 1, 2002
Product Code
TBMG-3408
Content Type
Magazine Article
Language
English