Mission Planning on Autonomous Avoidance for Spacecraft Confronting Orbital Debris

Abstract

This article investigates the mission planning problem for spacecraft confronting orbital debris to achieve autonomous avoidance. First, combined with the avoidance requirements, a closed-loop framework of autonomous avoidance for orbital debris is proposed. Under the established model of mission planning, a two-stage planning is proposed to coordinate the conflict between routine tasks and debris avoidance. During the planning for expansion, the temporal constraints for duration actions are handled by the ordering choices. Meanwhile, dynamic resource variables satisfying instantaneous numerical change and continuous linear change are reasoned in the execution of actions. Linear programming can solve the bounds of variables in each state, which is used to check the consistency of the interactive constraints on duration and resource. Then, the temporal relaxed planning graph heuristics is rationally developed to guide the plan toward the goal. Finally, the simulation demonstrates that the proposed mission planning strategy can effectively achieve the autonomous debris avoidance of the spacecraft.