A mission planning concept and mission planning system for future manned space missions

The international character of future manned space missions will compel the involvement of several international space agencies in mission planning tasks. Additionally, the community of users requires a higher degree of freedom for experiment planning. Both of these problems can be solved by a decentralized mission planning concept using the so-called 'envelope method,' by which resources are allocated to users by distributing resource profiles ('envelopes') which define resource availabilities at specified times. The users are essentially free to plan their activities independently of each other, provided that they stay within their envelopes. The new developments were aimed at refining the existing vague envelope concept into a practical method for decentralized planning. Selected critical functions were exercised by planning an example, founded on experience acquired by the MSCC during the Spacelab missions D-1 and D-2. The main activity regarding future mission planning tasks was to improve the existing MSCC mission planning system, using new techniques. An electronic interface was developed to collect all formalized user inputs more effectively, along with an 'envelope generator' for generation and manipulation of the resource envelopes. The existing scheduler and its data base were successfully replaced by an artificial intelligence scheduler. This scheduler is not only capable of handling resource envelopes, but also uses a new technology based on neuronal networks. Therefore, it is very well suited to solve the future scheduling problems more efficiently. This prototype mission planning system was used to gain new practical experience with decentralized mission planning, using the envelope method. In future steps, software tools will be optimized, and all data management planning activities will be embedded into the scheduler.