Method for estimating the direction of a satellite during a transfer phase of said satellite from an Earth orbit, referred to as "initial orbit", to another Earth orbit, referred to as "mission orbit", said direction of said satellite being estimated relative to a measurement antenna by executing a plurality of steps for measuring the reception power, by said measurement antenna, of a target signal emitted by said satellite, for different pointing directions of said measurement antenna, the estimated direction of said satellite corresponding to a pointing direction maximizing the power measurement, characterized in that, the target signal comprising a substantially sinusoidal component, referred to as "single-frequency component", each power measurement step comprises a transposition in the frequency domain of a digital signal, obtained from a signal supplied by the measurement antenna, in such a way as to obtain a frequency spectrum of said digital signal over a predetermined frequency band comprising said single-frequency component, referred to as "measurement band", and the power measurement for the pointing direction being considered is determined based on a maximum value of the frequency spectrum over said measurement band being considered, and in that said method comprises a search phase, a confirmation phase and, after the confirmation phase, a phase of updating the estimated direction of the satellite: - the search phase comprises a step for measuring the reception power for a pointing direction inside a first predetermined scanning cone around a theoretical direction of the satellite, and a step of evaluating a predetermined detection criterion according to the power measurement obtained for the pointing direction being considered, said steps of for measuring power and for evaluating being repeated for another pointing direction inside the first scanning cone as long as the detection criterion is not verified, - the confirmation phase, executed when the detection criterion is verified for a power measurement obtained for a pointing direction, referred to as "detection direction", comprises several steps for measuring power executed for different respective pointing directions inside a second scanning cone around the detection direction, the estimated direction of the satellite corresponding to the pointing direction maximizing the power measurement during said confirmation phase, - the phase of updating comprises a plurality of steps of measuring power associated respectively with different pointing directions around the estimated direction obtained during the confirmation phase, and a step of updating said estimated direction according to said power measurements and to a predetermined model of the radiation diagram of the measurement antenna. - the search phase comprises a step for measuring the reception power for a pointing direction inside a first predetermined scanning cone around a theoretical direction of the satellite, and a step of evaluating a predetermined detection criterion according to the power measurement obtained for the pointing direction being considered, said steps of for measuring power and for evaluating being repeated for another pointing direction inside the first scanning cone as long as the detection criterion is not verified, - the confirmation phase, executed when the detection criterion is verified for a power measurement obtained for a pointing direction, referred to as "detection direction", comprises several steps for measuring power executed for different respective pointing directions inside a second scanning cone around the detection direction, the estimated direction of the satellite corresponding to the pointing direction maximizing the power measurement during said confirmation phase, - the phase of updating comprises a plurality of steps of measuring power associated respectively with different pointing directions around the estimated direction obtained during the confirmation phase, and a step of updating said estimated direction according to said power measurements and to a predetermined model of the radiation diagram of the measurement antenna.