Satellite Orbit Prediction and Ground Station Visibility

This was built for a coursework for the Aerospace Engineering minor at UCL. Given the position and velocity of a satellite, we were required to create a program that predicts its trajectory using three different methods:

Keplerian orbit propagation
Integration with Runge–Kutta 4 (RK4)
Integration with RK4 with oblateness correction (RK4-J2)

We were also required to design a ground tracking station network of 4 stations around the world, maximising pass times.

The goal for the visualisation is to show the differences between the results of these three methods and show the views and coverage of each of the ground stations.

Currently, it shows the trajectory of JASON-2 over the course of 24 hours, starting from 16 December 2015 at 09:00 GMT.

I'm hoping to make the initial conditions customisable to show other satellites.

Ground tracks and ground stations

The bland-coloured, continuous paths show the ground tracks of the satellite from the three different methods:

The brightly coloured circles show the ground stations—you can drag the circles to change their location.

The brightly coloured paths are parts of the trajectory where the station has a view of the satellite. To simplify, we assume a ground station has a view of the satellite when the satellite is at an angle >5° above the horizon. RK4-J2 is taken as the reference position for calculating these.

Scroll to zoom in and out.

Ground station views

The four plots show the trajectory of the satellite in azimuth and elevation relative to a ground station. They use a stereographic projection (which is like facing South and looking straight up in the sky).

The area hidden by the mask angle (5°) is shaded in gray—the mask angle is marked with a subtle, dashed line.

Rise and set times

The blocks show the time intervals the satellite is in line of sight (above the mask angle) from a specific ground station.

Satellite Orbit Prediction and Ground Station Visibility

Ground tracks and ground stations

Ground station views

Rise and set times

Oblateness differences in HCL

Keplerian elements

Semi-major axis

Eccentricity

Inclination

Argument of perigee

Right ascension of ascending node

True anomaly