StreakMind: AI detection and analysis of satellite streaks in astronomical images with automated database integration

TL;DR

StreakMind is an automated pipeline that detects and characterizes satellite streaks in astronomical images, integrating results into a database to enhance space situational awareness.

Contribution

The paper introduces StreakMind, a novel automated system combining deep learning and geometric analysis for large-scale detection and identification of satellite streaks.

Findings

Achieved 94% precision and 97% recall on test data.

Effectively detects faint streaks and reconstructs their geometry.

Robustly cross-identifies satellites with known orbital objects.

Abstract

Artificial satellites and space debris increasingly contaminate astronomical images, affecting scientific surveys and producing large volumes of streaked exposures. Manual inspection is no longer feasible at scale, and reliable detection and characterisation of streaks has become essential for both data-quality control and the monitoring of objects in Earth orbit. We present StreakMind, an automated pipeline designed to detect Near-Earth Objects and satellite streaks in astronomical images, characterise their geometry, and cross-identify them with known orbital objects. The system integrates all inference results into a structured database suitable for large surveys. A YOLO OBB model was trained on a hybrid dataset of 2335 images and applied to processed FITS frames. Geometric refinement, inter-frame association, satellite cross-identification, and Gaussian-based confidence scoring were then used to produce final identifications stored in a relational database. Observations from La Sagra Observatory were used to develop and test the method. On the test set, the model achieved a precision of 94 percent and a recall of 97 percent. It reliably detected faint streaks, delivered consistent geometric reconstructions, and performed robust satellite cross-identification. StreakMind demonstrates strong potential for large-scale automated analysis of linear streaks produced by both Near-Earth Objects and artificial satellites, contributing to space situational awareness.