Date of Award
3-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department
Department of Operational Sciences
First Advisor
Richard F. Deckro, PhD
Abstract
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is becoming more congested, which increases the risk to space missions. Decision makers will need to consider this increase in congestion as an increased risk within their mission engineering process. This thesis proposes a methodology to create and implement a value structure that quantitatively scores a range of orbits based on congestion factors of each orbit and how well each orbit meets mission requirements. This thesis demonstrates this methodology on a set of circular LEO orbits defined by altitude and inclination, and scores this illustrative scenario based on notional mission measures and expected number of encounters as congestion measures. These scores are analyzed for sensitivity to changes in orbit scoring recommendations if the decision maker were to change the importance levels between mission and congestion factors. For any given mission definition, this orbit scoring methodology can be used to identify high value orbits that would be critical to controlling space.
AFIT Designator
AFIT-ENS-MS-22-M-120
DTIC Accession Number
AD1170686
Recommended Citation
Correale, Anthony J., "A Decision Analysis Framework to Consider Space Congestion in Orbit Selection" (2022). Theses and Dissertations. 5373.
https://scholar.afit.edu/etd/5373