Space Awareness: satellites and constellations
Search real satellites, design your own constellation, measure its coverage and screen it for collision risk on a 3D globe.
Open the Constellation Lab
Space Awareness has two views. Satellites and constellations is the lab with the globe and the map. Mission orbit viewer is for one spacecraft. A panel with six tabs sits beside the globe: Find, Design, Ground, Analyse, Risk and Scene.
This page needs a free account.
Find real satellites
On the Find tab, search by name, NORAD ID, designator or operator. Filter by object type, operator or country, orbit regime and status, or pick a constellation or mission group. Add one satellite, or add a whole group. Adding is limited to a number at a time, so narrow the filters or use a group for more.
Look at the globe
Click any satellite on the globe or the map to select it and draw its ground track and swath in white. Scroll or pinch to zoom and drag to pan. Use Show the whole world to reset the view.
Design your own constellation
On the Design tab choose a preset such as Iridium-like or GPS-like, or enter a Walker pattern: total satellites T, planes P and phasing F, with the altitude and inclination. You can also start from one of your mission designs. Then press Add to scene or Replace scene. Orbits are propagated with J2 perturbations.
Add ground points
On the Ground tab enable ground stations or sensors, or add your own point with a name, a latitude between -90 and 90 and a longitude between -180 and 180. Set the minimum elevation for contact.
Measure the coverage
On the Analyse tab choose the simulation length and press Run coverage simulation. Cover is the share of time with at least one satellite above the minimum elevation. Passes are separate periods of contact. The tab also finds the best 3 or 6 satellites.
Screen for collision risk
The Risk tab works in three parts: 1. Debris environment, 2. Conjunction screening against all active satellites or the full catalog, and 3. Near miss analysis with the collision probability. Set the hard body radius and export the CSV of close approaches.
Replay time
The Scene tab lists the satellites you added and lets you remove them. Use Play, Reverse and Jump to date in UTC to replay the orbits, and the simulation speed to go faster.
- Presets whose name ends in like are Walker approximations of well known systems, not their exact operational phasing.