Satellites on Google Earth
Satellites on Google Earth
Feb 25
UPDATE: New Google Earth tracking files for Space Telescopes are now up.
Hot on the heels of putting
all the SCUBA data onto Google Sky, I am now sharing some Google Earth goodies. The KML files below will allow you to view the location of any satellite on Google Earth with latitude, longitude and altitude positions updated every 30 seconds.
These Google Earth overlays use the NORAD two-line element (TLE) datasets that are published via the Celestrak website and are used by satellite enthusiasts the world over. I could not find them for Google Earth so have made them available myself.
There are three files that can be downloaded:
1) ISS Locator - A simple file that just tracks the position of the most popular and asked after satellite, the manned International Space Station. Shows the next 2 hours of flight path and the approximate size of the viewing horizon of the ISS (i.e. the area of the Earth's surface for which the ISS is potentially visible).
2) 100+ Brightest Objects - This file uses Celestrak's 100 or so brightest objects TLE file to show the locations on Google Earth of between 100-200 of the better known and easier to spot satellites.
3) Advanced Tracker - By default this KML file tracks the ISS from the 100+ file above. However it allows you to change the source TLE and satellite ID to any that you like, thus making it the first Google Earth addition that allows you to track any satellite at all! Instructions are found in the file by clicking its name in Google Earth. This layer also shows the viewing horizon and 2 hour flight path.
Download ISS Locator, 100+ Brightest Objects and Advanced Tracker.
Download All three files together in a zipped archive.
[..] A little unrelated, but I absolutely liked this site post [..]
How can display the tracking on my web page? 2D is enough, google maps ?
Thanks
Great links that you’ve set up. I’ve had the NORAD brightest up on my GE for quite awhile as well as the ISS.
Just added your select a satellite with those three.
The NORAD 100 doesn’t work anymore.
I suspect that one has to have an account to access the celes site data – which I have.
Two questions;
1 – how do you get the 100 to work now?
2 – how do you put the elset data into the track a satellite function so you can track any of the celes data sets or an individual satellite that you want to have up?
I’ve figured out that the ALL statement no longer works. Any of the individual satellites can be loaded and tailored using your function with the various changes you’ve noted in your tutorial.
The id=ALL statement should now be working again.
yes it does!
you can now select each of the celestrack satellite categories and set up subsets of satellites using your function. Very cool.
I work at the Air Force Weather Agency and like your track-any-sat script where you can see the orbit and horizon of the ISS and Hubble. I would like to be able to put the weather sat identifier into the script to see the NOAA birds, etc. Thank you.
James Spriggs
James, if you have the TLE data and the satellite ID you can track any satellite you like.
Rob, I have the TLE data and NORAD satellite ID of the satellites I want to track, I guess I am not savy enough to figure it out. I will give it another try or if you have a script, can you please pass it to me. Thank you very much for all your help.
V/r,
James
my email is jhspriggs@yahoo.com
I would like help tracking NOAA 19, NORAD ID=33591
TLE=NOAA 19
1 33591U 09005A 10109.43422383 -.00000112 00000-0 -38143-4 0 5103
2 33591 98.7854 52.8164 0015110 94.3631 265.9275 14.11043327 61621
Due to the advertisment of the women’s thong, I can not use your site in my classroom. Very disappointing.
Mr. FitzGerald: the adverts are on a random rotation, so you can simply refresh the page if a thong offends your sensibilities. There is a 1.03% chance that you will see a thong on any given page refresh.
Thank you all for the wonderful help. I have edited and created some great KML files to track the NOAA weather satellites. The track-any-sat script works wonderfully. Thanks again for everyones help.
Just wanted to say I enjoyed the site. You have really put a lot of time into your content and it is just wonderfull!
LT Spriggs,
Are you at Offutt? I am…
Trying to get the scripts to work again, cant get this post to work either. Hope the site returns to operational status soon. Thank you.
http://orbitingfrog.com/cgi-bin/100loc.pl? id=all&url=http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/noaa.txt
onInterval
15
Trying to get this and other scripts running again from this site, miss the updates.
Awesome, all and any are running again.
Since GE has a static Earth model, is there a way to show a closed-loop orbit of a satellite using GE? I have ECI, ECEF, and LLA coordinates to work with, but I can’t seem to get a closed loop orbit with GE