Automated Science Scheduling for the ECOSTRESS Mission

We describe the use of an automated scheduling system for observation policy design and to schedule operations of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) ECOSystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS). We describe the adaptation of the Compressed Large-scale Activity Scheduler and Planner (CLASP) scheduling system to the ECOSTRESS scheduling problem, highlighting multiple use cases for automated scheduling and several challenges for the scheduling technology: handling long-term campaigns with changing information, Mass Storage Unit Ring Buffer operations challenges, and orbit uncertainty. The described scheduling system has been used for operations of the ECOSTRESS instrument since its nominal operations start July 2018 and is expected to operate until mission end in Summer 2020.