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Maneuver Designer

The Maneuver Designer enables operators to construct, simulate, and analyze spacecraft maneuvers in the context of active conjunctions or orbital planning. Operators define maneuver parameters, evaluate trajectory changes, and assess the impact on conjunction risk.

Each maneuver plan is visualized in the orbital context and may be compared against baseline or previous variants to evaluate effectiveness. Designed maneuvers integrate directly with Satcat's risk assessment and coordination. A high-fidelity plan appears on the originating conjunction event as a theoretical CDM, where CDM comparison weighs it against the reference CDM and against other plans.

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Maneuver Designer requires a Satcat Operations Pro or Enterprise tier subscription.

Maneuver Projects​

A Maneuver Project is the container for one or more design variants. Each variant contains a unique set of maneuver parameters and can be used to test different mitigation strategies. Variant history enables iteration and comparison across planning options.

A collision avoidance project designs and evaluates maneuvers against a selected CDM. See Collision Avoidance.

Maneuver Types​

Maneuver Designer can generate COLA tradespaces for several maneuver types depending on the spacecraft's propulsion capabilities.

  • Impulsive: a single instantaneous burn, for chemical propulsion with significant delta-V capability.
  • Multi-burn: a sequence of 2 to 20 burns, for low-thrust platforms that cannot mitigate risk in one burn.
  • Differential Drag: drag-profile changes, for spacecraft with limited or no propulsion.

Tradespace risk metrics are approximations. Impulsive and Multi-burn tradespaces generate quickly and lose accuracy for maneuvers further from TCA or with large delta-V magnitudes; differential drag tradespaces are slower and more accurate. In every case, use High-Fidelity Propagation to confirm the selected maneuver before committing to it.

Maneuvers are aligned relative to the antipode of the TCA, giving the maximum possible effect on the spacecraft's state at TCA. Differential drag is the exception, because its off-nominal drag periods are many hours long.

Tradespace Settings​

These settings apply to every maneuver type. Each type adds its own, documented on its page.

  • Tradespace start time (TCA-) and Tradespace end time (TCA-): the window over which maneuvers are evaluated, relative to the TCA of the primary conjunction.
  • Tradespace ignition time options per orbit period: the density of the tradespace along the ignition time axis. At 1, every maneuver aligns to the antipode of the TCA. At 2 or more, maneuvers distribute evenly across the orbit period relative to that antipode: at 2, that means the podal and antipodal points.
  • Maneuver type: which tradespace to generate.
  • dV Frame and dV Direction: the reference frame and direction of the delta-V vector. Direction does not apply to differential drag.
  • dV magnitude: the range of delta-V magnitudes to evaluate. Does not apply to differential drag.
  • Maneuver Execution Uncertainty Model: the uncertainty model applied to maneuver execution.

Maneuver Execution Uncertainty​

Satcat supports modeling of maneuver execution uncertainty by specifying a model and certain characteristics of the propulsion system. The Gates model takes dV Mag Fixed Error (m/s), dV Mag Proportional Error (% of dV magnitude), dV Pointing Fixed Error (m/s), and dV Pointing Angular Error (rad).

Maneuver execution uncertainty is modeled only in high-fidelity plans, not across the tradespace.