Orbit
Every tracked satellite moving in real time, what is passing over you right now, and when the space station flies by.
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How it works
Method
Each satellite's position is worked out live in your browser from its latest orbital elements and drawn as it moves. Pick one to see its altitude, speed and full orbit. Share your location, or pick a city, to list everything more than 10 degrees above your horizon and find the space station's next pass. Time runs live or at 10, 60 or 600 times real speed.
Data
Orbital elements from CelesTrak for every active satellite, the space stations, the three largest debris clouds, objects about to re-enter, the geostationary belt and the last 30 days of launches, refreshed every six hours. Places for the city search from GeoNames (every town of 15,000 people or more). Earth imagery from NASA.
Model
SGP4, the standard model for these orbital elements (via satellite.js), runs in a background thread so thousands of objects move smoothly at up to 600 times real speed. What's overhead converts each position to elevation and direction as seen from your place; the next pass steps forward 20 seconds at a time over the next 48 hours.
Build
The shared three.js globe, with satellites drawn on the GPU and gliding between position updates. A scheduled job copies CelesTrak's data into a static file, so visitors' browsers never contact CelesTrak. There is no server: your location, if you share it, and the place you pick never leave your browser.