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Maya is a program, Matlab is a language.
That said, Maya is used for 3d visualization, not physics-based trajectory estimation. Matlab can do physics with the right equations, but it's slow. Instruments going into Earth-orbits often use the satellite toolkit (STK) for orbit propagation. However STK is stupid expensive, so many institutions have developed their own orbit propagation models to replace it (myself included), many of which take into account satellite cross section and estimated ionospheric plasma density based on predicted solar activity to improve orbit decay forecasts.
Now the above is my bread and butter, but interplanetary travel is a new one for me, so I'm not sure the software that's used. I can pretty much guarantee you, however, that Maya and Matlab are nowhere in the mix, and neither are flight simulator game engines. It's going to be a sophisticated set of algorithms that take into account predicted solar activity to estimate solar wind velocity and density, along with the satellite cross-sectional area and mass, advanced gravity models, etc. Knowing the space community, chances are it's all written in Fortran.
That said, I work for a contractor that does space instrumentation and defense work. We currently have a project to develop an instrument for a satellite on a mission to one of Jupiter's moons. I'll ask the head of the project at our company what the team is using for trajectory estimation, if he knows.
Last edited by suicidaleggroll; 11-07-2013 at 09:28 PM.
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