An expert system for the planning and scheduling of astronomical observations

KAOS is an AI program developed in-house at NASA Ames Research Center to assist in route planning of a C-141 flying astronomical observatory. This program determines a sequence of flightlegs that enables sequential observations of a set of astronomical objects derived from a list of desirable objects. The possible flightlegs are constrained by problems of observability, avoiding flyovers of warning and restricted military zones, minimizing deadlegs (flightlegs with no observations) and running out of fuel. The base module (KAOS-2) of the system has been developed and is currently in use. It is basically configured as a constrained search. As such, the combinatorial explosion usually prohibits the automatic generation of flight plans or plan segments exceeding six legs. More advanced knowledge-based approaches are now being explored to enable the automatic generation of complete flight plans with as many as 15 legs.