A novel acceleration-based formulation is proposed to construct minimum-∆ v bang-off-bang thrust profiles and impulsive maneuvers in a rapid manner. The proposed methodology leads to substantial simplifications by removing mass state, thrust magnitude and specific impulse values from the ensuing boundary-value problems. Standard acceleration-based methods form a quadratic cost to avoid singular arcs and to solve the resulting optimal control problems. We propose a method based on a linear acceleration term that achieves the desired bang-offbang control structure by enforcing a maximum acceleration parameter. Impulsive trajectories are obtained for large values of the acceleration parameter. Utility of the method is demonstrated for transfer maneuvers between orbits in two-body dynamics and in the Earth-Moon circular restricted three-body dynamical model.