High-Level Project Summary
Since 1998 there is a group of people orbiting the planet in the inhospitable space, but... Who are they? What do they do? Where are they? Can I see them? These are questions that enthusiasts ask themselves and many do not know, since finding this information is sometimes complicated and ends up being difficult to access.We came up with a didactic and simple approach, for all people without needing technical knowledge. By means of a web application that allows to observe the globe and the route of the ISS live. In addition to interesting data and images from the satellite cameras.Where ISS comes to solve the complications of people to approach the NASA and space community.
Link to Final Project
Link to Project "Demo"
Detailed Project Description
Tech stack
We used React and typescript, as core. And Three.js, Globe-gl, Satellite.js for the visualization and calculation of the ISS position.
Design
The design is inspired by the old NASA logo for its importance and historical recognition.
The red lines are the paths taken by the ISS in the past
This proposal brings:
- Simple visualization form.
- Interactive and easy distribution of information.
- Prediction and past locations (up to 3 days) to see the ISS in real time.
- Obervation data of when the ISS will be visible in a chosen location.
- Tracking view of ISS followed by some information and curiosities and live feed provided by the station
- Scalable format for extending and nucleating other current NASA projects.
Trajectories are calculated using Two-line element set and the sgp4 propagation prediction algorithm to know the trajectory of the satellite over time. This information is then translated into different types of coordinates to make the necessary projections around the earth.
Also integrated to the application is the functionality to know when we will be able to see the satellite from the ground given our position, using the Spot The Station widget provided by the NASA.
By combining all these tools we create a solid base where we can scale the application in the future either by adding more information from other satellites, satellite collision predictions, different visualization maps, or by adding more information from other satellites.
Space Agency Data
We used information from the CelesTrack service to obtain gp data of the ISS in order to make the prediction calculations and Spot The Sation for the ISS observation points widget.
We were inspired by the examples from the globe.js repository to create the application using the ISS position.
Hackathon Journey
We found the experience very rich and welcoming, all the spaces were carefully arranged for our comfort and productivity. We really learned to work together as a group, and we shared knowledge between the different team members, one point to highlight is the management and conversion of different types of coordinates. We thought it was a really good project to take advantage of the different skills of the team members. The most problematic moment of the challenge was losing much of the progress due to a failure in a teammate's computer. Luckily we were able to redo the losses in a reasonable time and reach a minimum deliverable.
I would like to thank all the participants and staff for the good vibes, creating a friendly and fun atmosphere for the challenge.
References
- satellite-js shashwatak and collaborators
- three.js collaborators
- momentjs collaborators
- globe.gl vasturiano and collaborators (thanks for making our jorney a lot easier)
- celestrak.org
- NASA Spot The Sation for the widget
- NASA, that provided the ISS 3D model
Tags
#ISS #InternationalSpaceSation #RealTimeView