The VEX| Orbital Sky
Awards & Nominations
The VEX has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
Orbital Sky
Space Coaster Ride
Summary
The project provides a real-life simulation of satellites around their orbits, Satellite models with user’s real-time weather data, Ground Stations and Observatories. Resources from NASA SSC Web API, weather API and map API were used. Data has been crucial in developing our project. Python, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Django framework are programming tools used. Throughout the project, we have focused on utilising data and presenting those data in a convenient way to the general public. These data have been modified into 2D, 3D models so that the general public can get a complete overview of satellites simulations, ground stations, observatories and weather data.
How We Addressed This Challenge
The challenge(Orbital Sky) is to bring the public closer to space objects, satellites.
Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In this space, there are various satellites, ground stations, observatories and so on. A satellite is anything that orbits around a larger object. Combining satellites, ground stations, observatories etc we have developed a web application that informs the public about the satellites around the Earth and its orbit.
Our app is designed to give an overview of various data regarding observatories around the earth. Real-time weather updates regarding your current position can be known through this web app. We have gathered various information regarding ground stations around the earth and have been able to provide a real-life simulation of various satellites revolving around the earth surface. Along with these features, we are also able to give positions of ground stations.
We hope that our web app will be able to provide a complete overview of the pieces of information about satellites, ground stations. With this app an individual can learn about satellites, observatories, get real-time weather information along with 3d visualization of various data.
In future, we are planning to enhance our application by adding further data about stars, constellations, solar systems and other space materials.
How We Developed This Project
The challenge “Orbital Sky” has the objective of attracting people towards space and satellites. The general public seems to have very little information about satellites because of the tedious and complicated data. Available satellite data are mostly used by scientists and experts.
So, we tried to find a way to inform people about satellites in a simple way. We displayed these data collected from NASA SSC Web to create a user-friendly web application where people can get information on observatories, ground stations, real-life simulation of satellites and weather information from satellites. We named it “Space Coaster Ride”.
For this project, we used a web application to preview our idea. The web application was developed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python framework Django. We used python to extract necessary data from the NASA web server API with the GET method.. We used javascript libraries like leaflet js, D3js, three.js, and particle.js for data visualization including 3D visualization. Map and weather APIs were also used in this project.
To mention a few problems, we were not able to access all NASA SSC Web data. For this, we even had to contact technical officials at NASA. Thanks a lot to them as well for figuring out possible solutions. Moreover, there were errors during the 3D visualizations of real-life simulation of satellites. We even used different mathematical equations like Kepler’s to solve it and simulate exactly the way satellite rotates the earth. Also, other technical errors occurred during data listing, geo-mapping, and web development. It was a “Space coaster Ride” for us.
Thankfully, we have now created a basic working application.
How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project
NASA SSC Web data(Observatories, locations, Ground stations) was directly used in this project.
Ground station data was used to map all the ground stations around the earth.
Observatories data was used to list the observatories in a particular time frame interval and graph representations.
Location and Observatories data was used in the real-life simulation of satellites around the earth.
Data from other APIs like (weather and map) was also used to provide real-time weather of the user's location along with the simulation view.
Project Demo
https://teamvex.pythonanywhere.com/
Project Code
Data & Resources
https://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/WS/sscr/2/groundStations
https://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/WS/sscr/2/spaseObservatories
https://sscweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/WS/sscr/2/locations
Openweather API
Mapbox API