Multi-Fidelity Space Mission Planning and Space Infrastructure Design Framework for Space Resource Logistics

Abstract

To build a sustainable and affordable space transportation system for human space exploration, the design and deployment of space infrastructures are critical; one attractive and promising infrastructure system is the in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) system. The design analysis and trade studies for ISRU systems require the consideration of not only the design of the ISRU plant itself but also other infrastructure systems (e.g., storage, power) and various ISRU architecture options (e.g., resource, location, technology). This paper proposes a system-level space infrastructure and its logistics design optimization framework to perform architecture trade studies. A new space infrastructure logistics optimization problem formulation is proposed that considers infrastructure subsystems' internal interactions and their external synergistic effects with space logistics simultaneously. Since the full-size version of this proposed problem formulation can be computationally prohibitive, a new multi-fidelity optimization formulation is developed by varying the granularity of the commodity type definition over the network graph; this multi-fidelity formulation can find an approximation solution to the full-size problem computationally efficiently with little sacrifice in the solution quality. The proposed problem formulation and method are applied to a multi-mission lunar exploration campaign to demonstrate their values.

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning Framework for Stochastic Spaceflight Campaign Design

“…Multiple studies have treated campaign-level mission planning such as SpaceNet [5], Interplanetary Logistics Model [6], and a series of network-based space logistics optimization frameworks based on the generalized multicommodity network flow and MILP [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The MILP-based optimization formulation theoretically guarantees the global optima for any deterministic problem scenarios.…”

Space architecture design for commercial suitability: A case study in in-situ resource utilization systems

“…Lunar ISRU has been considered as a promising technology for lunar and Mars exploration, and past studies have evaluated the value of ISRU [13][14][15][16]. Many such studies assumed that we can optimally choose the ISRU size dedicated to the mission.…”