In the future space missions, multispacecraft collaboration has become increasingly significant due to the inherent limitations of a single spacecraft in executing complex tasks. To address the coordination challenges associated with multispacecraft systems, a novel hierarchical mission planning framework is proposed in this paper. Within this framework, a complete planning process is divided into two layers, namely, the evaluation layer and the decision‐making layer. At the evaluation layer, the mission effectiveness is obtained based on the capabilities and current states of each spacecraft. At the decision‐making layer, the mission effectiveness data is then utilized for task allocation to generate a comprehensive and optimal mission plan. To validate the proposed method, extensive mission planning and orbital dynamics simulations were conducted using virtual scenarios of multispacecraft collaboration. The results demonstrate that this approach effectively resolves the challenges of multispacecraft task allocation and single‐spacecraft task planning, thus providing a robust solution for the coordination of future space missions.
Zhu et al. (Thu,) studied this question.