Chingiz Akniyazov: Ground Control to Major Tom: Monitoring space objects for Space Traffic Management in the Cislunar Environment

<p dir="ltr">Cislunar space is rapidly becoming busy, yet current GEO-centric space-situational-awareness (SSA) tools do not scale to the faint, intermittently illuminated targets between Earth and the Moon. We present a fast, reusable method for designing surveillance orbits and sensor placement. First, we compute the Magnitude-of-Observability (MOA) for a representative population at a sparse set of fixed “anchors,” and fit local derivatives to build a surrogate visibility field over cislunar space. An observer orbit is then scored by the fraction of time it resides in regions with MOA at or brighter than a chosen limiting magnitude (with an optional soft depth measure). The approach produces heatmaps, time windows, and family-wide rankings (e.g., DRO/HALO) that expose why orbits differ and identify high-yield patrol sites—those exceeding a 30% time-in-good threshold—for telescope placement. Because the anchor table can be recomputed as assumptions change, the workflow supports rapid “what-if” studies that directly inform cislunar SSA operations and lunar-flash science.</p>