High-Level Project Summary
SATCOM is an online tool to explore all space debris currently tracked. SATCOM will bring more awareness for this problem to the general audiences, and take a step into the future where humanity won’t run out of space to explore.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
CONTROLS
- X to select random satellite
- A to go down one satellite, D to go up one
- H to hide/show the settings bar
- F to start spinning animation
- Q to stop spinning animation
DESCRIPTION
SATCOM is an interactive online map of all space debris currently tracked by Space-Track.org. There are about 18000 entries in the database, all of which can be visualized.
SATCOM uses satellite-js to get latitude, longitude, and height for each piece of debris. Satellite-js is also used for orbit drawing, by simply running its propagation functions SATCOM can get an array of positions to draw a WorldWind path.
NASA WorldWind is the main visualization library. Its Placemark feature is used extensively for satellite rendering and different layers provide a convenient way to configure Earth's look. SATCOM has support from 3D and 2D globes thanks to WorldWind.
Colors are assigned based on the object's height. Red means Low Earth's orbit, cyan means geostationary, and purple indicates everything in between.
Each object also has one of three displayed sizes based on radar cross-section: Small (< 0.1m2), Medium (0.1m2 – 1m2), and Large (>1m2).
Radar mode filters only the satellites visible from the user's location. It needs access to the user's geolocation in order to work!
SATCOM will also show relevant incident data if any is available. This data is hardcoded and included mainly as a proof-of-concept. It has 15 different names at this point.
Languages
SATCOM is written in vanilla JavaScript
Hopes
The Kessler Syndrome is a theoretical scenario in which Earth's orbit is overpopulated with objects and debris, preventing the use of satellites in certain sections of Earth's orbit. SATCOM's purpose is to educate general audiences about locations, orbits, and amounts of space debris currently in orbit. The 'X' button is the 'fun' button allowing users to visualize elliptical orbits in a new way, not as ellipses but as tracks on Earth's surface.
Space Agency Data
NASA WorldWind is the central library powering the project. It's an amazing 3D and 2D visualization library, with a highly customizable user interface and advanced feature set. The availability of the JavaScript/WebGL port of this library inspired me to do this project due to the ability for the final project to just run on any PC or smartphone with a web browser.
Hackathon Journey
I did enter this project to improve my skills in data analysis, and data visualization. I choose JavaScript in particular because I like the simplicity it provides for users. I believe that space junk is a real threat to humanity as a whole. I spent a lot of time analyzing possibilities, classes, and features of the NASA WorldWind Web library, to provide a simple by rich feature set designed for inexperienced users to stop by, explore, and learn. Most of the challenges were derived from the short amount of time given to finish the project, therefore scale, especially for the one-man team, should be severely limited.
References
Libraries
NASA WebWorldWind: https://github.com/NASAWorldWind/WebWorldWind
satellite.js: https://github.com/shashwatak/satellite-js
Data
Space-Track TLE database: https://www.space-track.org/
Sounds
Radar Sound Effect: http://www.orangefreesounds.com/
Ambient music: Kerbal Space Program - Tracking Station, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6W9UfF5RZ8
"Demo" video background music: Stranger Things, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2obv0DHuhu4
Tags
#data_visualisation #spacedebris #satcom #javascript #worldwind #satelite-js #data_analysis #nasa