Distributed planning and scheduling for instrument and platform operations

Distributed planning and scheduling for instruments and platform operations in resource constrained environments are discussed. NASA has repeatedly faced the situation of multiple users having differing goals, objectives, and requirements interacting with a planning and scheduling system. Current examples include the Hubble Space Telescope and Space Station Freedom. The paper provides a brief description of the instrument and platform operations domain, discusses both traditional and distributed planning and scheduling in the context of this domain, and looks at examples of NASA environments in which planning and scheduling is or will be performed in a distributed system.