Demonstration of On-Board Maneuver Planning using Autonomous S/W Architectures

The need for higher level of SIC autonomy is gaining increased importance in future space missions planning. These autonomous capabilities are needed not only to reduce the overall mission life-cycle cost but also to enable a new class of planetary missions (comets, asteroids, moons, etc.) requiring rendezvous and/or sample return. Some of the key candidate technologies identified for such missions include, autonomous approach/rendezvous/descent navigation, autonomous maneuver planning and implementation, and target based pointing and tracking. This paper presents the results of implementation and simulation of on-board maneuver planning, where a high level command is implemented while satisfying mission flight rules and spacecraft constraints. As part of this effort, a candidate spacecraft simulation is developed within a S/W architecture that provides a set of constructs suited for implementation of high level task decomposition and planning as well as on-line constraints checking and exception handling functions. The software architecture allows for future incremental refinements or addition of new autonomous capabilities as mission needs evolve.