# Deep Learning Warm Starts Accelerate Trajectory Optimization for Astrobee on the International Space Station

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-26T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/rlp6mgcytb7snun05nqnvgec3
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05588

## Summary

A research team completed an on-orbit demonstration on the International Space Station's Astrobee free-flying robot of machine learning-based warm starts to accelerate trajectory optimization, using a neural network to predict initial values for a sequential convex programming (SCP) solver, which then enforces safety constraints. In scenarios including rotational dynamics, the trained network reduced the number of solver iterations required for convergence by 60%, and by 50% in obstacle scenarios drawn from the training distribution. The work was published at iSpaRo 2025.
