Awards & Nominations
Andromeda has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Andromeda
High-Level Project Summary
To reduce the risk of collisions we are predicting coordinates of debris in the far future. The quality of analytical predictions quickly degrades over time. That is why we developed a web application, which truck space debris and predict their location in the future with good precision.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Introduction:
With the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, mankind entered the space age. And now we are not too far away from interplanetary voyages. But as we launch more and more missions to space, we also increase the amount of trash. And with time we are putting so much debris in space that we may confine ourselves to dangers that would make to get past our own garbage.
As of 2019, there are more than 500 million debris of different sizes. And the number increases as we speak. And many of them pose severe threats not only to space travel but also to people on earth. Collisions with debris larger than 1 cm would disable an operational spacecraft and may cause the explosion of a decommissioned spacecraft or rocket body. Millimetre-size debris may cause local damage or disable a subsystem of an operational spacecraft. Large space debris objects, such as abandoned satellites or rocket bodies reenters the atmosphere with an average of 1 per day can reach Earth’s surface, creating risk to the population on the ground.
How to use our application?
When you open the project's link, you will be redirected to our landing page of "Andromeda". In this page you will find information about the project, team members and a contact us form.
To access our simulator, you can click on the "VISIT SIMULATOR" button.
Features:
Our web application displays different types of space trash including inactive satellites, rocket bodies, debris and some uncategorized debris. Each type is represented by a different color to help the user distinguish between types of spatial trash. We are not limited to space stash, but we track active satellites also, this will help us predict if there is a collision between a satellite and other objects.
Real-time space debris tracking
Our web application enables the user to visualize space debris locations in real time, and we update their location every second to create an animation that demonstrates objects movement.
Forecasting
The user has full control over the timeline, he can move the time cursor of the timeline bar in the bottom of the page and visualize debris locations in that point of time. We have used the satellite.js library to predict debris locations in a given point of time. Not only that, the user can speed up or slow down the animation by changing the speed arrow in the bottom left corner.
In the bottom example, the speed animation is set to 150x:
Orbit visualization
When the user clicks on a specific object, the application will show the orbit of that object.
Debris information
When the user clicks on a specific object, he has access to all provided data for the selected object.
Debris filter
We can apply a filter to select a specific type of debris, or we can filter by data source, Constellation, Country, origin or Orbit regime or any combination of these filters.
2D view
The user has the possibility to select the 2D view.
Project tools
Our web application is developed with JavaScript for the client side and the server side.
Cesium.js : A javascript tool to display 3D globe in the browser.
Satellite.js : A javascript library to calculate debris location from it's TLE.
jQuery : A javascript library for web development.
Express.js : A Node.js library used to develop our server side.
Axios : A javascript library used to retrieve data from Celestrack and Space Track public APIs.
Project's impact
About 5-10% of a mission cost is due to space trash which accounts for about hundreds of millions of dollars. Our project will put an impact on space travel and provide necessary insights to tackle major issues that can be caused by space trash. Small magnitude satellites can use our solution to predict unfortunate collisions. Moreover, the knowledge of the accurate coordinates of space debris will help us select the right path to launch and place new satellites to orbit avoiding any collision.
Space Agency Data
Celestrack: https://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/
Space Track https://www.space-track.org
We have used Celestrack and Space Track public APIs to collect debris data including the name, NORAD ID, etc. and the most important information TLE (Two Line Element) data. We process this data, and we prepared our debris catalog which is a JSON file that contains all required data, then we use it to display debris in the browser.
Hackathon Journey
During this experience, we worked as a team in order to come up with this creative idea. We learned how to be organized, tackle differents tasks, and work under pressure. We chose this challenge because we want to limit space pollution.
References
Cesium.js youtube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQxTBNFrDvQ&list=PLzxF7WV4IZssEyDEhK5KtA1Pn7X-pmUuf A youtube playlist with Cesium.js tutorials.
Two-line element sets - Practice and use: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289774073_Two-line_element_sets_-_Practice_and_use A research paper that explains how to process TLE data.
Visual Identity (Made by our designer): https://drive.google.com/file/d/16KhBPCMXt8osEvcrj1bZypKzVazUHU3L/view?usp=sharing
Tags
#Spacetrash #Debris #App #3D #Web #Design #Globe #Tracking #Simulation
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.