简介

Satlas

Real-time space situational awareness, with an AI agent at the front door.

A live, open platform that lets anyone explore what's happening in Earth orbit — every tracked satellite, rocket body, and piece of debris, visualised in 3D and queryable in plain English.

Live demo: satlas.app · (also getsatlas.vercel.app) Open the site — 30,000+ tracked objects orbit Earth in real time across their actual altitudes (LEO, MEO, GEO shells visually distinct), fetched from the US Space Force catalog and propagated in a web worker. A real-time cloud layer drapes the globe; a star field from NASA's Gaia DR2 catalog fills the background. Ask: "When does the ISS pass over Melbourne tonight?" — it does real orbital mechanics to answer. Ask: "Show me where the ISS is right now" — it answers and flies the 3D globe camera to the ISS, pulsing it three times. Ask: "Show all Starlink satellites" — it highlights every Starlink dot in violet while dimming everything else. Ask: "How many GPS satellites are tracked?" — reads the live count from the globe, no tool call needed. Ask: "What satellites are overhead right now from Sydney?"_ — it queries the catalog and tells you. Hover any dot for name + altitude. Click to select (multiple selections supported) — see the info card with live lat/lon/altitude/velocity, orbital parameters, and satellite metadata (owner, launch date, launch site). Hit "Ask AI" to query it. Category filter pills toggle entire groups on/off. Cloud layer and Debris toggles in the top-right. Enable the Borders toggle to switch to map mode — country fills, graticule, and country name labels appear; click any country to see which satellites are overhead right now. Open the Pass Prediction panel from any satellite info card — enter or geolocate your position; see every visible pass in the next 24 hours with times, max elevation, and approach direction. The agent remembers conversation context — follow-up questions work. API docs at satlas.app/docs — curl-ready examples for every endpoint. Status: V1 live — custom domain (satlas.app), HTTPS on ALB, ECS Fargate + S3/CloudFront/RDS all deployed, pass prediction for any location, satellite metadata (owner/launch date/site) from Space-Track, public API docs.

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What's working now

• [x] 3D Earth with real-time cloud layer (clouds.matteason.co.uk, updates ~3h, AdditiveBlending)
• [x] NASA Gaia DR2 star field skybox — denser and higher quality than procedural stars
• [x] 30,000+ tracked objects at actual orbital altitudes (LEO/MEO/GEO shells visually distinct)
• [x] ISS rendered separately with yellow dot; catalog satellites colour-coded by type
• [x] Dot sizing by type: GEO satellites 1.5× base size, debris 0.6× and dimmer
• [x] Satellite trails — last 10 minutes of ECEF path on selected satellite, lime→transparent fade
• [x] Multi-satellite selection tray — click multiple satellites; each gets its own orbit ring; tray chip ✕ removes; card ✕ closes info only
• [x] Satellite info card — live lat/lon/altitude/velocity + orbital parameters + metadata (country, launch date, launch site, status) from Space-Track
• [x] Text search — type to find any satellite by name or NORAD ID; keyboard-navigable results
• [x] Hover tooltip — satellite name + altitude; hovered/selected satellites highlight lime green
• [x] Category filter pills — Starlink / GPS / Iridium / Debris / Other with instant Uint8Array mask; debris off by default
• [x] Cloud layer + Debris toggles — show/hide independently from the globe overlay
• [x] Borders / map mode — dark navy fill, country borders, lat/lon graticule, country name labels; lazy GeoJSON fetch
• [x] Country click → CountryPanel — shows all satellites overhead (>10° elevation) at that moment, tiered by elevation
• [x] Search fly-to — selecting a satellite from search flies the camera directly to it
• [x] AI agent answers questions with real orbital mechanics (skyfield pass prediction, satellite lookup)
• [x] Agent-driven globe interaction — "show me the ISS" flies the camera and pulses it
• [x] Agent-controlled category filter — "show only Starlink" applies filter + colours; pill state stays in sync
• [x] AI category counts — "how many GPS satellites?" reads live counts from globe (no tool call)
• [x] Multi-turn conversation history — follow-up questions work
• [x] Find satellites overhead from any location ("what's visible from Sydney right now?")
• [x] Look up any satellite by name or NORAD ID — live orbital snapshot + globe highlight
• [x] Melbourne-accurate timestamps (computed server-side, never guessed by the AI)
• [x] Mobile-friendly layout — 100dvh + safe-area insets so overlays clear browser chrome on iOS/Android
• [x] Pass prediction panel — geolocate or search any location; next 24h passes with time, duration, max elevation, direction, sky condition (Day/Twilight/Night), satellite illumination status, and visibility score (0–100%)
• [x] Search dropdown always shows a catalog-name tip — some satellites appear under catalog IDs; try NORAD ID if a name search misses
• [x] Developer notes panel — "i" button (bottom-right) opens a toggleable panel with notes from the developer; hides when chat is open
• [x] Public API with docs at satlas.app/docs — 6 endpoints, curl-ready examples
• [x] Custom domain satlas.app with HTTPS (ACM cert, ALB HTTPS listener, HTTP→HTTPS redirect)