#SpaceBirds: The world of satellites at your fingertips

There is an amazing amount of stuff orbiting our planet, from the international space station to random debris, both organic and inorganic. For most, it is difficult to imagine this amount of stuff floating around our planet, as well as their placement and trajectories.

SpaceBirds, a new innovative application intended as both a visual and educational application, and a powerful tracking tool, developed using WebWorldWind, can be used by professionals, students, and enthusiasts alike. The app consists of an easy to use front-end allowing the user to display all known tracked orbital objects and ground stations, and display their relative information, such as type, orbital period, low, medium, and high earth orbit, country of origin, and use, all in a 3D environment.

The user will have access to over 15,000 orbitals and their information and the ability to group satellites by classification and even create and store their own custom groups through a streamline search ability or merely by clicking on them, in order to gain information and closely follow individual satellites and groups.

The app will offer fun and exciting visual interactivity, by providing 3D models, visual fields of satellites, and future and past orbit paths, while providing a powerful tool, allowing the user to work with orbital bodies and corresponding ground stations, track satellite trajectory and position, provide heat maps of satellites past and future coverage of the earth’s surface, and act as a warning system for potential collisions with the earths surface and other orbital objects.

The application is still in its alpha stage as it still contains some bugs and is lacking some features we plan to incorporate.

###SCREEN SHOTS:

###HOW TO USE:

-Satellites-

In its current stage of the application, on opening the application, the user can select one of four sets of satellite data, which allows the user to view all known satellites or exclusively payloads, rocket bodies, or debris.

Once the satellites are rendered on the World Wind Globe, the user can toggle three different orbit types to focus on one or all of the following: Low Earth Orbit, Medium Earth Orbit, and High Earth Orbit.

After selecting the orbit type and satellite type, the user can hover their curser over individual satellites to render their past and future orbit, giving them an idea of where it will be or where it has been during a given amount of time, while also providing key data of the selected satellite.

Clicking on the satellite will take the user to the satellite and update the camera position in order to follow the satellite and allow the user to orbit around the satellite. This will also render the satellites orbit, as well as a 3D model (currently most of these will not be accurate models), and a visual cone that represents its visual range on the earths surface, which can be used in correspondence to the ground stations.

While in follow mode, the user can toggle the orbit paths, visual cone, and the camera follow mode with the corresponding buttons.

-Ground Stations-

Ground stations can be rendered by selecting the Ground Stations button at the bottom left of the screen.

##FEATURES TO COME:

-Satellites-

• Orbit length control that displays current time of the end of orbit

• Ability to move individual satellites forward and backward in time

• Additional orbit types and ranges the user can toggle between

• Faster and smoother animation

• Search

• Pre-defined groups

• Custom grouping

• Expanded library of 3d models

-Ground Stations-

• Ability to highlight and display coordinates, information, and area coverage shapes

• Search

• Pre-defined groups

• Custom grouping

• 3D models

==================== Organization: NASA Ames Research Center (PX)**

Manager: Patrick Hogan, Yann Voumard**

Authors: Miguel Del Castillo, Bert Stewart**

Developers: Enika Biswas, Nidhi Jain, Jenipher Gonzalez, Nancy Hernandez**

Acknowledgements: Benjamin Chang, Gabriel Militão, Farah Salah, Khaled Sharif**