Human Systems Integration Division @ NASA Ames

This paper describes the development of an interactive proximity operations planning system that allows on-site palnning of fuel-efficient multiburn manuevers in a potential multispacecraft environment. Although this display system most directly assists planning by providing visual feedback to aid visualization of the trajectories and constraints, its most significant features inclde 1) the use of an "inverse dynamics" algorithm that removes control nonlinearities facing the operator, and 2) a trajectory planning technique taht seperates, through a "geometric spreadsheet," the normally coupled complex problems of planning orbital manuvers and allows solution by an iterative sequence of simple independent actions. the visual feedback of trajectory shapes and operational constraints provided by user-transparent and continously active background computations, allows the operator to make fast, iterative design changes that rapidly converge to fuel-efficient solutions. The planning tool provides an example of operator-assisted optimizations of nonlinear cost functions.