CONTINUUM SPACE SYSTEMS, INC. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: AF21S-TCSO1

Description

The number of Resident Space Objects (RSOs), particularly in low Earth orbit, is rapidly increasing, both wanted and unwanted, friendly and otherwise. Thus, a critical need to service, whether to refuel, repair, remove, or reposition RSOs at scale is emerging. Specifically, the capability to visit numerous RSOs with a single spacecraft. Currently, designing and optimizing such missions under rapidly evolving constraints – technical and operational – require dedicated expertise and software coupled with significant time investment.  This paradigm is not conducive to persistent domain awareness and responsiveness for defense customers and space sustainability for commercial users. Kessler Run rapidly and efficiently computes optimal trajectories for a single or several spacecraft to visit numerous RSOs, including the determination of the sequence for rendezvousing with the RSOs. This solution can be implemented for various mission requirements and constraints to fit the specific needs of a customer.  The solution comprises a novel optimization software, ASSET (Astrodynamics Software and Science Enabling Toolkit), developed at the University of Alabama that can readily be applied to multi-RSO rendezvous problems, and thus is highly relevant to applications such as debris removal or servicing. ASSET’s low level strengths were successfully demonstrated at the international 11th Global Trajectory Optimization Competition (GTOC-11). Using ASSET and only 2 desktop computers, the University of Alabama was placed 5th at the competition, while competing with other universities and space agencies from around the globe that had access to high-performance-computing (HPC) clusters.  Kessler Run will couple ASSET with Continuum Space’s cloud based space mission platform, Continuum Toolkit (CTK), to create an application layer that abstracts the complexity of formulating and solving optimization problems for multi-RSO rendezvous scenarios at scale. The software will emphasize extensibility and scalability for future optimization applications,  thus allowing it to be readily adapted to address the continuously evolving needs of commercial and defense customers.