OPTIMAL COLLISION AVOIDANCE FOR MULTIPLE CONJUNCTION EVENTS

Operational collision threat characterization is now an essential component of space mission operations. Most spacecraft operators have some semblance of a process to evaluate and mitigate high-risk conjunction events. As the size of the space object catalog increases, satellite operators will be faced with more conjunction events to evaluate. Thus more sophisticated collision threat characterization and collision avoidance strategies must be implemented. This paper presents an optimal avoidance methodology that reduces the collision risk for one or more high-risk conjunction events. The avoidance approach leverages a derivative-free optimization (DFO) algorithm. It is shown that the DFO method is particular well suited for optimal maneuver planning.