Logistics issues in autonomous food production systems for extended duration space exploration

To enable longer space missions, systems for production of food in space will be necessary. The Autonomous Life Support System (ALSS) program of NASA is an on-going research effort in this direction. This research uses intelligent agents to relieve the crew of substantial efforts relating to the food production tasks. In this paper, we propose a contract net protocol approach to schedule transportation activities within this environment. A discrete-event simulation model using QUEST software (by Deneb Robotics, Inc.) is used to represent the flow of the transportation traffic within the system