Viewing the spacecraft orbiting the Moon in real time. Pretty cool, hum?!
http://ladeestk.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/preview.cgi
Real-time animation of LADEE spacecraft
Category Archives: 3-Space
The “smartest rocket” pictured by the “coolest hexacopter”
SpaceX is doing amazing things! Their “Grasshopper” is a Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) rocket vehicle to test a new concept of rocket that is capable of returning back to Earth intact. Sounds like rocket science recycling?
In this video you can see something amazing. I call it the Greatest Combination of Aerospace Tech: the smartest rocket on Earth being observed by an Hexacopter! How much better can you get?
Satellite Tracker
Tracking satellites can be fun (where is the ISS now?) … and complicated. Fortunately there are some algorithms that can help like the SGP4.
I’ve used an available php implementation of the SGP4 algorithm and made a simple satellite tracker application showing the ISS, but really it can show any satellite as long I feed the proper Two Line Element from CelesTrack.
Check the link and you’ll see where the ISS is hovering now: www.spacemig.com/satellite-tracker
And you can check how accurate this is by going to this link:
References
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_perturbations_models
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-line_element_set
- http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/