Mission Design

The FDAB uses a large suite of mission design tools, including a combination of COTS and GOTS applications. Combined, the tools support the full range of orbit regimes, from LEO to planetary and interplanetary. The primary systems used to support both analysis and on-orbit operations include various in-house-built systems such as GMAN and Swingby in addition to the COTS tools Astrogator, STK, and Freeflyer. Other tools, such as MaNe, are used primarily as first-guess tools or analysis vehicles for study missions. To solve problems that the current suite of tools does not address, Matlab scripts, either standalone or linked to another tool, are often used both for study mission analysis and for operations support.