  This paper proposes a framework for scheduling the observation and download
tasks of multiple agile satellites with practical considerations such as
attitude transition time, onboard data capacity, and stereoscopic image
acquisition. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation for optimal
scheduling that can address these practical considerations is introduced. A
heuristic algorithm to obtain a near-optimal solution of the formulated MILP
based on the time windows pruning procedure is proposed. A comprehensive case
study demonstrating the validity of the proposed formulation and heuristic is
presented.
