GPU-Accelerated Orbit Propagation with High-Fidelity Solar Radiation Pressure Modeling

A new GPU path for orbit propagation pushes high-fidelity solar radiation pressure modeling into more practical territory. Using Vulkan instead of an OpenGL-based implementation, the system preserves accuracy with relative differences below 5×10^-4 while cutting the cost of repeated SRP evaluations during integration.

The headline numbers are strong: up to 9.4x faster for individual SRP computations and up to 15.2x faster for complete orbit propagation, with the biggest gains on geometrically complex spacecraft. That matters anywhere a simulation has to evaluate the same force model thousands of times per run, because SRP is one of the non-gravitational effects that can dominate long-term trajectory error.

The work also extends the model to handle moving solar panels instead of treating them as fixed. That turns out to matter: ignoring panel motion can create significant long-term propagation drift, especially for spacecraft with large articulated arrays, even though the added cost is only moderate.

For developers building space sims, mission-planning tools, or any physics system that needs both fidelity and throughput, the practical takeaway is clear. Precomputed interpolation remains a valid option in some cases, but online GPU evaluation is now justified when geometry is complex or when long-horizon accuracy is the priority.