Physical AI for Space Logistics and Transportation
Space logistics is a velocity budget you compose and a chain of maneuvers an autonomy stack flies. Compute the rocket-equation wall and pay it down with infrastructure; propagate relative motion with Clohessy-Wiltshire and solve a two-impulse rendezvous; estimate a tumbling target with a Kalman filter; and seat a part by force, not position. Every bench runs the real math behind the Charlot Lab's orbital-logistics instruments.
▶ Start the course ← All coursesThe Velocity Budget
Turn every destination into a delta-v budget, see the rocket-equation wall, and pay it down by composing shared infrastructure with the onboard vehicle.
- L2The rocket-equation wallSee why a single vehicle paying the whole velocity budget hits an exponential wall, and where a destination becomes physically unreachable.→
- L2Composing the budgetPay the budget down with reusable infrastructure and autonomous in-space transport, and reach destinations a single vehicle cannot.→
Rendezvous & Proximity Operations
Reason in the target's local frame: propagate relative motion with Clohessy-Wiltshire and solve the two-impulse maneuver that flies a chaser to a soft berth.
- L3Relative motion: Clohessy-WiltshirePropagate a chaser's motion near a target on a circular orbit, and discover the two behaviours that make rendezvous non-obvious.→
- L3Two-impulse rendezvousSolve for the burn that flies a chaser to the target in a chosen time, price both burns, and find the faster-costs-more tradeoff.→
Capture, Servicing & Assembly
Close the last links with autonomy: estimate a non-cooperative target with a Kalman filter, and seat a part by force where precision fails.
- L3Estimating a non-cooperative targetTrack a noisy, tumbling target with a constant-velocity Kalman filter and show it beats using the raw measurements.→
- L4Seat it by force: compliant servicingInsert a part into a socket with misalignment, and show that force control seats it where rigid position control jams.→