EuroWire, MOSCOW: A Russian researcher has developed an algorithm designed to speed up the calculation of spacecraft maneuver parameters from minimal ground observations, a development that could help operators update satellite trajectories more quickly and improve collision avoidance in Earth orbit. The work was highlighted by RUDN University on April 12 and centers on methods created by Andrey Baranov, a professor at the university’s Engineering Academy and a leading researcher at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics.
The underlying research was published in the journal Symmetry in May 2024 and focuses on determining how a spacecraft’s orbit changed after a maneuver without waiting for long observation campaigns. According to the university and the paper, the method can work with one or two short series of optical measurements taken from Earth, using right ascension and declination data to estimate the parameters of the maneuver and the spacecraft’s updated path through orbit.
That approach addresses a persistent challenge in space tracking, where a satellite that has changed orbit can temporarily become harder to model accurately until enough new observations are collected. Baranov’s method is intended to shorten that gap by extracting post-maneuver information from a minimal number of measurements. The research covers near-circular orbits and is aimed in part at improving the speed of catalog maintenance for maneuvering objects, including satellites operating in geostationary orbit.
Satellite orbit tracking
RUDN said the algorithm can be applied to both short impulsive maneuvers and longer maneuvers carried out with low-thrust engines. In practical terms, the method is designed to determine when an engine fired, how large the resulting velocity change was, and how the spacecraft’s orbit shifted after the maneuver. The paper also describes semi-analytical techniques intended to reduce calculation time, a feature that becomes more important as the number of active satellites requiring routine monitoring continues to rise.
The research also extends beyond active spacecraft to passive objects whose motion can be harder to forecast with standard models. Baranov’s paper describes a way to estimate constant perturbing accelerations acting on debris and retired hardware, including objects with large surface areas that are more sensitive to forces such as solar radiation pressure or atmospheric drag. By incorporating those effects from very limited observations, the method aims to improve future-motion calculations for debris catalogs used in conjunction analysis and space surveillance.
Debris tracking pressure grows
RUDN said the method has already been tested on real data from geostationary satellites and reported maneuver-parameter errors measured in fractions of a percent in experiments. The university said the system is ready for practical use in space tracking centers. The announcement follows earlier Baranov research on related orbit-determination problems, including work published in 2022 on assessing perturbing accelerations from minimal optical observations, showing a continuing line of study focused on faster orbit reconstruction from sparse data.
The timing of the announcement comes as orbital congestion continues to intensify. RUDN said around 5,000 maneuvering satellites are operating in near-Earth orbit, while the European Space Agency said in its 2025 Space Environment Report that about 40,000 objects are tracked by space surveillance networks, including about 11,000 active payloads. ESA also estimated that more than 1.2 million debris objects larger than 1 centimeter are in orbit, underscoring the growing operational value of faster and more accurate post-maneuver tracking.