High-Level Project Summary
The Spacemess team has created a real-time web application to monitor all known space debris. The data is updated every fraction of a second to provide real-time information to the astronauts and scientists, leading to successful and safe missions. Furthermore, the platform could also serve as a medium to create awareness about the rising number of space debris. Even the smallest debris can cause damage to satellites, spacecrafts as well as the ISS. Our web app can help, not only in tracking these debris but also in predicting their path.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
More than 27,000 pieces of orbital debris, or “space junk,” are tracked by the Department of Defense’s global Space Surveillance Network (SSN) sensors. Much more debris -- too small to be tracked, but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic missions -- exists in the near-Earth space environment. Since both the debris and spacecraft are traveling at extremely high speeds (approximately 15,700 mph in low Earth orbit), an impact of even a tiny piece of orbital debris with a spacecraft could create big problems.
The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, including to the International Space Station and other spacecraft with humans aboard, such as SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
NASA takes the threat of collisions with space debris seriously and has a long-standing set of guidelines on how to deal with each potential collision threat to the space station. These guidelines, part of a larger body of decision-making aids known as flight rules, specify when the expected proximity of a piece of debris increases the probability of a collision enough that evasive action or other precautions to ensure the safety of the crew are needed.
(https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html)
Project Snapshots
Our real-time space debris tracking system visualizes most of the space debris present in the Earth's orbital. Furthermore, it also includes satellite data and a satellite position estimation system. One can even speed up the time to view the position of the debris and the satellites in the future.
The user can see the debris all around the globe, and by placing his/her cursor on debris/satellite, he/she will be able to view the information (id, name, altitude, latitude, longitude) of the debris/satellite. The user can also fast forward the time pointer to view where the satellite/debris will be in the future.
The user also has the option to set a ground station at a desired location and select satellites/debris to know when they would pass over the selected location. There's also an option to focus on a particular debris/satellite and follow its path in real-time.
Our real-time tracking system fetches huge amounts of data from celestrak in the TLE format. Our application is totally real-time, which means that the data is fetched every fraction of a second. The user interface is also very easy to use and aesthetic. The app also has various other visual settings to enhance the user experience such as HDR mode, real-time lighting effects, fog, etc.
It also contains a variety of different tools and options such as the focus mode, orbit tracking, etc.
While making this application, the main goal we had was to create awareness among people on the issue of the increasing amount of space debris in the Earth's orbital. Furthermore, it can also be used by astronauts to track space debris as well as in space missions to avoid clashes with debris.
We used VueJS for the front-end solutions to develop the entire UI as seen in the demo video. Along with it, we also used CesiumJS for the globe visualization and SatelliteJS for the prediction and movement of the satellites. Our graphical user interface provides a useful connection between a scientific approach to the project and a comfortable user experience.
Space Agency Data
We got some really valuable information on space debris from space agency resources such as https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris, https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html, etc.
We have also included a short summary of the problem that our app aims to solve and have included credible information in the same from these sources.
Hackathon Journey
Our Space Apps experience has been really enriching and fun. We got to work and interact with people around the world. Also, the Space Apps community text channels were a great place for finding new teammates, asking for help, or just interacting with other participants.
We had a fun time collaborating with each other and developing a solution that we are proud of. We also learned a lot about the problems associated with the increasing number of space debris while working on this project.
We also had teammates with expertise in different areas and with different skill levels. As a result, we were also able to learn a lot from each other while collaborating on this project.
When we first saw this challenge, we all found it really interesting and all of us had some ideas around it. We explored the other challenges but this one seemed the most suitable for us. Also, after researching on this topic, we realized that this is a really serious issue which many people don't know about. Hence, we decided to take on this challenge and develop an app to raise awareness about this issue.
We first brainstormed a lot of ideas on how to go about this project and after a lot of deliberation, we decided to use Celestrak and Cesium as they were the most reliable and fastest to use/integrate. On the first day, we completed most of the frontend part and on the second day, we configured the backend and integrated it with the frontend. The second day was particularly stressful as we also had to make the pitch and work late till at night due to the different timezones.
We faced some issues while integrating the backend and the frontend along with some other minor issues along the way. However, these were eventually solved with the collective effort of all the team members.
Another setback we faced was that one of our team members had to drop out of the competition right before the event started due to some personal issues. Nevertheless, we kept our morale high and tried to give our best for this competition.
We would like to thank Nasa Space Apps for giving us the opportunity to participate in this prestigious challenge. We would also like to thank all the ambassadors and SMEs in that chat, especially Miguel Del Castillo, who were always there to help us.
References
http://www.celestrak.com/ (data)
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html (information regarding ideas and brainstorming, also used in app's about section)
https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/ (information regarding ideas and brainstorming, also used in app's about section)
https://cesium.com/ (library used)
Tags
#space #mappingspacedebris #TLE #mappingspacetrash #spacemess #internationalteam #india #algeria #debris #spacetrashmapper #spacedebrismapper #celestrack #cesium #github #satellite-tracking
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.