Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Air Force Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) came up with a new approach to predicting re-entry while trying to track Phobos-Grunt. Article here:
A New Approach to Predicting Re-Entry
Basically their approach was to take a supercomputer and give it access to the best real-time tracking available. Sounds like their results were pretty good.