What's the best mission planning software for trajectory design during a multi-burn lunar transfer mission?

For a multi-burn lunar transfer mission, the “best” mission planning software depends on whether you want high-fidelity trajectory design, optimal control, or full mission operations planning. For most serious design work, the top choices are:

Best overall for trajectory design

GMAT (General Mission Analysis Tool)

• Free and widely used
• Good for patched-conic and higher-fidelity trajectory analysis
• Supports impulsive burns, finite burns, optimization, and targeting
• Strong for Earth–Moon mission design and mission concept studies

Best for high-fidelity optimization / research-grade design

STK Astrogator

• Very powerful for multi-impulse and low-thrust trajectory design
• Excellent visualization and mission sequence setup
• Good optimization tools
• Commercial, so more expensive

Best for custom optimization and advanced mission design

MATLAB / Python toolchains Examples:

• poliastro / Orekit / tudatpy
• Custom optimization with CasADi, PyGMO, SciPy, etc.
• Best if you need custom constraints, repeated design iteration, or integration with your own analysis methods

Common recommendation

If you’re asking from a practical engineering standpoint:

• Use GMAT if you want the best free tool
• Use STK Astrogator if budget is available and you want a polished, powerful environment
• Use Python/MATLAB if you need flexibility and are comfortable building your own workflows

For a multi-burn lunar transfer specifically

You’ll want software that can handle:

• Earth departure targeting
• Midcourse correction burns
• Lunar approach targeting
• LOI targeting
• Perturbations and finite burn modeling

So my short answer is: GMAT is usually the best starting point, and STK Astrogator is the strongest commercial option.

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a comparison table, or
2. the best choice for a low-budget vs professional mission team.