Optimizing Space Logistics Network Deployment under Limited Up-Front Costs: Case Study in the Asteroid Mining and Refueling Business

摘要

Despite a number of proposals and projects for expanding human's region of activity to outer space, not many of them have been realized. Two significant reasons for the difficulty of space exploration are up-front cost and uncertainty. We model space logistics network deployment based on General Multi-Commodity Network Flows (GMCNF) proposed by Ishimatsu and formulate a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem that maximizes the Net Present Value (NPV) of the deployment plan while limiting the maximum cumulative loss under the allowable value. We conduct a case study on the asteroid mining and refueling business and analyze the optimal network deployment plan to observe the effect of uncertainty in the model.