持续机动“星链”卫星轨道确定与预报方法

The long-duration orbital raising and deorbiting maneuvers of Starlink satellites after launch result in prolonged spacecraft motion and increased congestion in low Earth orbit，posing significant collision risks. Due to frequent and unknown maneuver states during deployment and disposal phases，traditional orbit determination and prediction methods exhibit large errors，failing to meet requirements for detection，cataloging and collision risk assessment. To address these challenges，a novel method for orbit determination and prediction of continuously maneuvering satellites is proposed，where the continuous maneuvering effect is generalized as variations in orbital equinoctial elements. Based on analysis of publicly released ephemeris data from SpaceX，the orbital control strategies are extracted，and the evolution model of equinoctial elements under continuous maneuvers is derived. Corresponding orbital maneuver perturbation terms are established，and orbit propagation and parameter estimation are performed using semi-analytical orbit theory and the least-squares method. The method’s effectiveness is validated using simulated radar observations generated from cooperative two-line element（TLE）sets. Results indicate that prediction accuracy is comparable to cooperative TLEs in the short term （within 24 hours），while significant advantages emerge in the medium to long term（beyond 36 hours）. Specifically， along-track errors are reduced by over 70%，fulfilling requirements for data association，target cataloging and collision risk assessment.