Paired-Outcome Learning for Selective Spacecraft Attitude Capture under Torque Limits

Donghe Chen, Jia Deng, Zehao Jia, Lin Cheng, Shengping Gong

Torque-limited spacecraft attitude capture requires adapting the maneuver speed to uncertain braking authority. Faster settings can reduce average tracking error while worsening individual maneuvers, making selective modification of an existing controller a baseline-relative learning problem. A paired-outcome method combines three mechanisms: physically interpretable continuation policies with different speed envelopes, separate prediction of task failure and successful-pair tracking gains, and context-dependent rejection that executes the unchanged baseline. Complete paired simulations provide labels under common plant parameters and measurement seeds; training, validation, and calibration are separated by context. Basilisk experiments use 108 development contexts, 324 labeling rollouts, and 624 evaluation episodes across 48 test contexts, including disclosed post-freeze diagnostics. The selective controller reduces aggregate integrated attitude error by 4.67% relative to the branch baseline, with 17 improvements, 31 exact ties, and no observed regressions. Always using the fast alternative achieves a 4.81% reduction but worsens 11 cases. Gains occur in principal-axis,…