arXiv AI By Somrita Banerjee, Abhishek Cauligi, Marco Pavone

Deep Learning Warm Starts for Trajectory Optimization on the International Space Station

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The paper reports the first in‑space demonstration of using machine learning‑based warm starts to accelerate trajectory optimization for the Astrobee free‑flying robot on the International Space Station. A neural network is trained to learn the structure of the trajectory generation problem solved by sequential convex programming, and onboard predictions reduce solver iterations by 60% for rotational dynamics and 50% for obstacle‑laden scenarios. This approach enables real‑time trajectory planning while respecting safety constraints on limited flight hardware.

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arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 16

Neural Operator Learning for Collision-Aware Trajectory Planning of Spacecraft Swarms

The paper presents a permutation‑equivariant neural operator that learns to generate collision‑free, fuel‑efficient trajectories for spacecraft swarms by mapping distributions of initial and target states, as well as obstacle states, to trajectory outputs. The operator is self‑supervised and, when paired with a batched Gauss‑Newton step, enforces exact orbital dynamics and further reduces fuel consumption. Trained on ten spacecraft, the model generalizes zero‑shot to swarms of 1,000 spacecraft and 11,000 obstacles, achieving accuracy comparable to a per‑agent optimal control solver while maintaining collision avoidance.

By Sidhdharth D. Sikka, Suyi Gao, Zehui Lu, Rongjie Lai, Shaoshuai Mou