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Spaceport Facility Location Planning within the US National Airspace System

Haochen Wu, Kevin R. Sun, Jackson A. Miller, Oliver Jia-Richards, Max Z. Li

Abstract

The burgeoning commercial space transportation industry necessitates an expansion of launch infrastructure to meet rising demands. However, future operations from these large-scale infrastructures can result in new impacts, particularly to air traffic operations. To rigorously reason about where such future spaceports might be located and what their impacts might be, we introduce a facility location planning model for future US spaceports (SPFLP). Central considerations for the SPFLP include population density, space launch trajectories, and potential impacts to air traffic within the US National Airspace System (NAS). The SPFLP outputs a cost-optimal set of candidate locations for future spaceports while satisfying a range of operational constraints. By conducting sensitivity analyses on the SPFLP, we are able to examine differences in flight rerouting costs and optimal launch mission allocations. Our model and numerical experiments offer valuable insights for future spaceport site selection, contributing to the strategic development of commercial space transportation while keeping in mind the need to integrate these operations within the NAS.

Spaceport Facility Location Planning within the US National Airspace System

Abstract

The burgeoning commercial space transportation industry necessitates an expansion of launch infrastructure to meet rising demands. However, future operations from these large-scale infrastructures can result in new impacts, particularly to air traffic operations. To rigorously reason about where such future spaceports might be located and what their impacts might be, we introduce a facility location planning model for future US spaceports (SPFLP). Central considerations for the SPFLP include population density, space launch trajectories, and potential impacts to air traffic within the US National Airspace System (NAS). The SPFLP outputs a cost-optimal set of candidate locations for future spaceports while satisfying a range of operational constraints. By conducting sensitivity analyses on the SPFLP, we are able to examine differences in flight rerouting costs and optimal launch mission allocations. Our model and numerical experiments offer valuable insights for future spaceport site selection, contributing to the strategic development of commercial space transportation while keeping in mind the need to integrate these operations within the NAS.
Paper Structure (24 sections, 12 equations, 5 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 24 sections, 12 equations, 5 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Motivation and research problem
  3. Background and prior works
  4. Space launch operations within the NAS
  5. Facility location planning (FLP) problems
  6. Contributions
  7. Methodology
  8. Costs and demand
  9. Launch trajectory constraints
  10. Filtering feasible trajectories
  11. Launch trajectory costs
  12. SPFLP formulation
  13. Extracting and allocating mission types
  14. Spatial dispersal of spaceports
  15. Complete SPFLP formulation
  16. ...and 9 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Space launch demand forecast via \ref{['eq:forecast_eqns']} with $\alpha = 0.6$ and $\beta = 0.05$.
  • Figure 2: Mission type clustering results based on historical orbital inclination and semi-major axis pairs.
  • Figure 3: Spaceport location planning results showing breakdown of launch mission type allocations among West Coast, East Coast, and Gulf Coast spaceport locations for low levels of air traffic.
  • Figure 4: Spaceport location planning results showing breakdown of launch mission type allocations among West Coast, East Coast, and Gulf Coast spaceport locations for high levels of air traffic.
  • Figure 5: $\xi = 5^{\circ}$ with low air traffic. Red triangles indicate the hazard zones, and each selected spaceport location has a red disc with radius $D = 300$ miles.