The frontend services were written in JavaScript, CSS and HTML using Node.js. Coming from the perspective of no web development experience or any knowledge of JS, it was an interesting pick. We did want a large reach however, so it was the logical choice as compared to an application. The IDE of choice was WebStorm. As for problems, all were from my lack of experience with JS, so much of the planned functionality didn't get implemented in time. Perhaps in hindsight, the initial scope of the project was a little too big for the experience level, but getting a working example of the NASA Web WorldWind API and some styling of the page was certainly an achievement from my point of view.

An ESP8266-based devboard was chosen to allow use of the Arduino platform with extensive library support, as well as WiFi capability so that physical data wires would not be needed across rotating parts. The first step was connecting the board to the local wireless network, then using node.js to run http-server on a PC connected to the same network. For testing, it was used a blank index.html and an example static data.html, so it could make sure the esp8266 was able to send a http request to the server and read the azimuth and elevation required in JSON format. Then, the stepper and servo motor were wired, using the CheapStepper and Servo libraries respectively to drive the motors to the angle specified by the PC. Finally, the process to transform the positions of the satellite and user in terms of latitude, longitude, and altitude into the azimuth and elevation angles required for the tracker were worked out, but this is not yet implemented in the javascript code for the web app.

The physical satellite tracker was specifically designed with Fusion360 to be 3D printing ready, which was intended to be accessible for the public and making it easy to assemble with generic micro-servomotors. Its design is simple for creating the rotation of the motors in the two different planes (compass direction and elevation), allowing the movements to be smooth and precise.

We got our spacecraft data from https://www.space-track.org and https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/ in a raw .JSON file. The data contains known orbiting satellites' names, TLE representation, type (payload, rocket, or debris) , country, 3D globe and more, and a large proportion of the satellite tracked are from NASA and their partners. This allowed us to calculate where the satellite would be at the current time by propagating its orbital parameters forward from the launch date, and thus show on screen the correct location in real time. It also lets us transmit that current location data to the microcontroller so it can move the tracker to the correct location.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GE-nUqwrEFqIg0ziNfeG8V5ITTz81vScFWvk-7Hhn70/edit?usp=sharing

NASA Web WorldWind - https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/web/

Satellite Propagation via TLE - https://github.com/shashwatak/satellite-js

SpaceBirds - https://github.com/Beak-man/SpaceBirds/tree/spaceapps_2020

Arduino Stepper Motor library -https://github.com/tyhenry/CheapStepper 

Arduino HTTP Client library - https://github.com/amcewen/HttpClient 

Arduino JSON parser - https://arduinojson.org/v6/assistant/