Inclination
Orbit rings are tilted from catalog inclination when available.
Satellite catalog
Working, current, and decommissioned Earth satellites.
A separate satellite page with a lightweight 3D Earth orbit view, catalog filters, active same-origin satellite snapshots, and a decommissioned archive for study and comparison.
Drag to rotate. Wheel to zoom. Same-origin satellite snapshots are downsampled for fast rendering.
Catalog controls
Filter satellite records
- shown- source- latest epoch
The 3D view renders a performance-safe sample of the selected group. It is for visual study, not certified collision analysis.
Orbit view
What the 3D view shows
Orbit shell
Mean motion estimates a compact LEO, MEO, or GEO radius for visualization.
Status
Current groups load same-origin data; decommissioned entries use a curated local archive.
Satellite rows
Current table view
Switch groups to compare current, working, thematic, and decommissioned satellites.
| Object | Status / group | NORAD / operator | Object id / launch | Inclination | Period / orbit | Epoch / note |
|---|
Satellite Study Notes
How to use the catalog responsibly
Current satellites
Active, station, science, weather, resource, GPS, GEO, and Starlink groups are loaded from compact same-origin JSON snapshots.
Decommissioned satellites
The archive shows retired, inactive, reentered, graveyard, and historically important objects as mission-study references.
Performance
The chart draws a bounded sample so the VPS and browser remain responsive even when the active catalog contains thousands of records.
Precision warning
This is not an SGP4 flight-dynamics console. Operational work needs fresh elements, a validated propagator, and collision-risk tools.
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.