Modeling and Optimization for Space Logistics Operations: Review of State of the Art

Abstract

As "Space Mobility and Logistics" was listed as one of the five core competencies in the US Space Force's doctrine document, there is a growing interest in developing technologies to enable in-space refueling, servicing, assembly, and manufacturing as well as other in-space logistics operations. Modeling for space mobility and logistics requires a new approach that differs from conventional astrodynamics because it needs to consider the coordination of multiple vehicles to satisfy an overall demand; namely, the optimal trajectory of one vehicle does not necessarily lead to the optimal campaign solution that contains multiple vehicles and infrastructure elements. In addition, for in-space servicing applications, we need additional analysis capabilities to analyze and optimize the sizes of the fuel/spare depots and their inventory/sparing policies with orbital mechanics in mind. To tackle these challenges, there have been various attempts to leverage terrestrial logistics-driven techniques, coupled with astrodynamics, to enhance in-space operations; an earlier primary domain of interest was refueling and resource utilization for human space exploration, and more recent studies focus on in-space servicing, in-space manufacturing, and mega-scale constellations. This paper aims to provide a review of the literature by categorizing the state-of-the-art studies in two ways: (1) by application questions that are addressed; and (2) by logistics-driven methods that are used in the studies. The two categorizations are expected to help both practitioners and researchers understand the state of the art and identify the under-explored and promising future research directions.Comment: Submitted to AIAA SciTech Conference 202