Session
Weekday Session 4: Automation
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
The accelerating proliferation of space vehicles in LEO presents a significant operational and security challenge in coordinating operations between vehicles and across constellations. The growing operational complexity demands a reliable automation approach capable of orchestrating multiple agents, potentially across different domains. No longer is it sufficient to automate a single vehicle in isolation since many of the tasks being conducted by these constellations require cross-schedule coordination. To address the current operational demands and limitations, the Multi-Mission Orchestrator, or MMO, provides a methodology and framework for coordinating space vehicle operations and secure data transfers across heterogeneous constellations and even multi-domain systems of systems. MMO removes the operational planning demand that would otherwise be placed on a team of operators and automates the day-to-day scheduling. It abstracts the detailed mission tasks into an intuitive framework while also leveraging quantitative mission utility and security assessments using a zero-trust approach. The optimization engine within MMO selects operations for every space vehicle within the system to result in an operationally feasible and secure constellation schedule. This paper describes the planning concept, outlines the underlying key elements enabling MMO, and analyzes the performance realized when using MMO to plan cross-schedule operations for collecting and ultimately, securely delivering mission critical data sets.
Autonomous Multi-Mission Orchestration for Small Satellite Constellations
Utah State University, Logan, UT
The accelerating proliferation of space vehicles in LEO presents a significant operational and security challenge in coordinating operations between vehicles and across constellations. The growing operational complexity demands a reliable automation approach capable of orchestrating multiple agents, potentially across different domains. No longer is it sufficient to automate a single vehicle in isolation since many of the tasks being conducted by these constellations require cross-schedule coordination. To address the current operational demands and limitations, the Multi-Mission Orchestrator, or MMO, provides a methodology and framework for coordinating space vehicle operations and secure data transfers across heterogeneous constellations and even multi-domain systems of systems. MMO removes the operational planning demand that would otherwise be placed on a team of operators and automates the day-to-day scheduling. It abstracts the detailed mission tasks into an intuitive framework while also leveraging quantitative mission utility and security assessments using a zero-trust approach. The optimization engine within MMO selects operations for every space vehicle within the system to result in an operationally feasible and secure constellation schedule. This paper describes the planning concept, outlines the underlying key elements enabling MMO, and analyzes the performance realized when using MMO to plan cross-schedule operations for collecting and ultimately, securely delivering mission critical data sets.
