International space station resupply cost minimization

Trent Sahinkaya, Sojung Kim

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

This paper aims at mitigating operational cost of a resupply chain of the International Space Station (ISS). Two aspects of the supply chain have been considered in the minimization problem: (1) reduction of necessary number of resupply missions to keep the ISS supplied and (2) enhancement of utilization of cargo inventory via flexible scheduling strategy. To consider complex interactions between elements in the ISS supply chain, the simulation-based scheduling approach has been proposed under SpaceNet® simulation software, using the NASA launch schedule and cargo data from 2015 through 2018. The main obstacle with creating such a model is that there are a number of assumptions and generalizations necessary to simulate the system, while still attempting to have it be applicable to real world scenarios. To make the simulation more realistic, various conditions of a supply chain addressed in existing literatures are incorporated into the proposed approach. The developed simulation model is verified with cargo utilization and demand under different usage levels in a control model. As a result, the proposed approach is able to effectively minimize the operational cost of an ISS supply chain.

Original languageEnglish
Pages360-365
Number of pages6
StatePublished - 2018
Event2018 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Annual Conference and Expo, IISE 2018 - Orlando, United States
Duration: 19 May 201822 May 2018

Conference

Conference2018 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Annual Conference and Expo, IISE 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando
Period19/05/1822/05/18

Keywords

  • Aerospace
  • Discrete event simulation
  • Operations research
  • Optimization
  • Resource planning
  • Scheduling

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