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Fenil Modi · Space Systems & Software

Systemsthat watchthe sky

In February 2009, two satellites were tracked as a safe miss — half a kilometre apart. They collided anyway, at 11.7 km/s, scattering thousands of fragments across low Earth orbit. The tools that missed it measured distance. I build ORCAS: software that measures probability instead, and would have flagged that collision as critical.

Epoch · UTC--:--:--
PaperICSSIT 2026 · 1849
StatusPublished · IEEE Xplore
The Core Problem

A “safe distance” isn’t always safe.

Every tracked satellite position carries some uncertainty — less a point than a small cloud of possible locations. Two satellites can be reported half a kilometre apart and still have those clouds overlap enough to collide. Distance alone can’t see that; only the shape of the uncertainty can.

ORCAS combines classical orbital mechanics with machine learning to compute that risk directly — a real probability of collision (Pc), for thousands of objects at once, not just a yes/no distance check.

They weren’t wrong about the distance in 2009. They were wrong to treat it as a distance.

Trajectory

Background & Path

B.Tech Computer Engineering · Silver Oak University

2022

Started B.Tech

Computer Engineering, Silver Oak University, Ahmedabad.

2023

Quantum-Enhanced AES

Course research project — quantum-random key generation via Qiskit, validated against NIST SP 800-22.

Jan 2024

Team Lead — Space Debris Tracking

Leading a multi-member team building orbital debris tracking, prediction and visualisation on NASA APIs and public satellite tracking data (TLEs).

Jun 2026

Paper accepted

ICSSIT 2026, Paper ID 1849, technically sponsored by the IEEE SMC Society. Presented 28–30 July.

Aug 2026

Paper published

Indexed in IEEE Xplore. ICSSIT 2026 proceedings, pp. 1957–1962.

2026

Graduating

B.Tech complete. Targeting research groups working on space situational awareness.

Featured System

ORCAS Deep Dive

Explore Case Study & Simulation →
Phase P1 Verified · Historical Golden-File Rebuilt

Orbital Risk & Conjunction Assessment System

A full reconstruction of the 2009 Iridium–Cosmos collision, rebuilt from real historical data — not a demo dataset. Under the hood: the same orbit propagation, uncertainty projection, and classification techniques used in operational space-traffic systems.

Validation Altitude788.6 km
Calculated Pc4.2 × 10⁻³
Alert VerdictCRITICAL
Featured Projects

Systems & Research

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Plate 01

A record of where everything was.

ORCAS · ORBITAL RISK AND CONJUNCTION ASSESSMENT SYSTEM · EVERY OBJECT ABOVE EARTH, PROPAGATED · SGP4 / SDP4 · PLATE 01 OF 01 ·THE CATALOGUE IS PUBLIC · THE SKY IS NOT LEGIBLE WITHOUT IT · BUILT BY FENIL MODI · MMXXVI ·00h06h12h18hLEOMEOGEO