Detection of spacecraft maneuvers based on publicly available data

Detecting maneuvers is important to a number of operational needs, such as to ease tracking of active satellites, discern and forecast the regular activity of a satellite, and detect deviations from nominal maneuver patterns. Although data on the orbits of satellites are publicly available on the internet, their precision is low and uncertain, which makes the task of detecting maneuvers complicated. The aim of this project is to develop and implement new techniques to recognize when maneuvers have occurred, and to give a first estimate of the magnitude and direction of such maneuvers. The developed algorithms will be tested against published maneuver histories, and integrated into software developed in-house at GlobVision.

Faculty Supervisor:

James Forbes

Student:

Eleonora Botta

Partner:

GlobVision

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Aerospace and defense

University:

Program: