Planning and Scheduling of an Agile Earth Observing Satellite Combining on-Ground and on-Board Decisions

The new generation of agile satellites has more freedom and choices on when and how to make an observation. That may lead to the needs of uniform and deliberate considering operating status and rules of on-board instruments in the management and control process. What's more, needs are improving responsiveness to dynamic environments, and lightening communication loads between the satellite and the ground. Given the restrictions on on-board computing ability, we propose a framework for integrated planning and scheduling of an agile satellite which combines both on-board and on-ground decisions. Different decision functions are divided and deployed. Simulative application in a corporation which is developing agile satellites shows that the planning and scheduling framework proposed in this paper is able to effectively support the management and control task of an agile satellite and adequately make use of its multiplication advantages in data acquirement.