Frame
Latitude and longitude are Earth-fixed sub-satellite coordinates derived from a simplified propagation of same-origin catalog elements.
ISS live map
Ground-track study of the International Space Station and Hubble.
This 2D map propagates local catalog elements into an educational Earth-fixed view: live sub-satellite coordinates, approximate speed, orbital period, altitude, and predicted ground track.
Textured globe
Rotatable Earth view with ISS and Hubble overlay.
Drag the globe to rotate the real equirectangular world texture. The same propagated ISS and Hubble positions are projected on the visible hemisphere.
Globe interpretation
How the overlay is drawn
The globe uses the same local world-map texture as the 2D tracker. ISS and Hubble markers use the current propagated sub-satellite latitude and longitude, so the 2D path and globe marker stay consistent.
Map interpretation
What this 2D view means
Speed
Displayed speed is instantaneous two-body orbital speed from the propagated radius, not a drag-corrected operational estimate.
Ground track
The curved line ahead of the marker comes from the projected orbit over the selected future time window; Earth rotation is included in the map conversion.
Limits
This is an educational tracker. It is not a precision SGP4, conjunction, docking, or attitude-planning console.
Mathematical model
Satellite orbit propagation model
Satellite and observatory maps use orbital period, mean motion, altitude, and coordinate transforms. The model is a lightweight educational propagator, not a pixel drawing of a ground track.
Mean motion
\[n=\frac{2\pi}{P}\]
The phase angle advances from orbital period P. This keeps speed and repeat timing consistent with the catalog shell.
Circular speed check
\[v=\sqrt{\frac{\mu}{r}}\]
For circular shells, speed follows the gravitational parameter mu and orbital radius r. Displayed speed is checked against this relation.
Ground-track projection
\[\lambda=\operatorname{atan2}(y,x)-\omega_E t\]
Earth rotation is subtracted from the inertial longitude to draw the map track. The proof is a coordinate transform from orbit frame to rotating Earth frame.
Verification standard: the rendered object must be reproducible from stated equations, catalog parameters, or explicit geometric transforms. Visual reference images may inform presentation only; they are not the source of orbital positions, field vectors, accretion-disk gradients, timing, or engineering layout.
Limitations: browser scenes may use bounded scale, compressed distances, simplified two-body dynamics, schematic transfer curves, or educational approximations where full numerical ephemerides, CFD, finite-element models, or general-relativistic ray tracing are outside the page scope. Those simplifications are part of the model contract, not hidden image-based construction.