Autonomous Maneuver Planning at Small Bodies via Mission Objective Reachability Analysis

An autonomous trajectory planning scheme is formulated to pursue mission goals in strongly non-Keplerian orbit environments. Techniques for efficient reachability analysis are adapted into a receding-horizon implementation to generate mission profiles consisting of impulsive maneuvers and ballistic arcs that safely fulfill several science observation goals at close proximity to Phobos. Decisions are automated via a hierarchy of objective functions concerning overall mission progress, the balancing of short-term gains with long-term prospects, and the heuristic search of the complexly structured reachable space. Monte Carlo mission performance analyses reveal that although the planning scheme yields widely varied solutions, adjustments of its parameters nonetheless produce clear effects upon the mean performance. This initial characterization of a new paradigm for small body mission design demonstrates potential for realtime onboard application as well as for use in broad preliminary studies of the volatile mission solution space.

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