Taramandal-GPT: Enhancing Astrodynamics Problem-Solving with Knowledge Retrieval and Structured Thinking

Abstract:Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable progress in natural language understanding, yet their effectiveness in specialized fields like astronomy and astrodynamics remains limited due to challenges in multi-step reasoning, symbolic manipulation, and domain-specific terminology. To address this, we present Taramandal-GPT (Constellation-GPT), a domain-adapted framework built on the Qwen3-8b backbone, enhanced with a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline and a fallback mechanism for improved contextual precision. We evaluate it on the Astrodynamics Problems Benchmark (APBench), a dataset of 299 questions covering foundational to advanced levels of space science. Using a dual evaluation method - numeric margin-based scoring and semantic similarity assessment - Taramandal-GPT achieves competitive performance against state-of-the-art open- and closed-source models, with notable strength in thinking-intensive tasks. These results highlight the value of specialized LLMs for domains demanding accuracy and interpretability, positioning Taramandal-GPT as a step toward reliable Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistants for astrophysics, spacecraft engineering, and space exploration.

Computation and Language (cs.CL); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

arXiv:2609.24246 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2609.24246v1 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.24246 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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