SatSpy 1.0

A simple GUI implementation of the popular Satellite tracking website N2YO.com

Note: N2YO.com provides a REST API used in this project that requires an API Key obtained through the website. (However, an API key is provided by default with a maximum of 1000 requests/hour)

Features:

• Search for satellites by Name or NORAD ID
• Provide a brief description of the satellite, mission objectives, etc.
• Provide a range of identification information such as International Code, Period (time of 1 spin taken by satellite around earth) and general information such as launch site
• Realtime satellite tracking through a widget made by N2YO which utilizes Folium (a LeafletJS Wrapper for Python) [openly available on their website]
  • N2YO widget displays the Map as well as telemetric information of satellite being tracked, and a table that displays the next satellite sightings around the user's location
• More features will be added in the following versions

Upcoming features:

• API input text box to allow individual users to link personal API key
• Threading might be considered to reduce map load time
• Switching between different map tiles (styles)
• Watchlist
• Projected telemetry graphs for the next N hours

How it works:

Libraries:

• JSON
• OS
• RE
• SYS
• GeoCoder
• Pandas
• PyQt5 (and other branching libraries)
• Matplotlib
• Functools
• Operator
• BeautifulSoup

Functions:

A few functions are used to obtain different information and load the map into PyQt5 GUI elements

• searchButtonFunc():

  • Extracts text typed (or option from dropdown) in GUI searchbox element
  • NORAD ID from selected option is passed down to argument obtainData() (referred to below)
  • 2 files are created:
    • telemetry.txt: stores a list of projected coordinates for the next 3 hours
    • altitudes.txt: stores a list of projected altitude for the next 3 hours

• get_satellite_details(url):

  • Takes an argument of 1 url: "https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=NORAD_ID" where satellite NORAD ID is concatenated at the end to obtain the following data:
    • Description
    • Name
    • NORAD ID
    • International Code
    • Period (time taken for 1 loop around orbit)
    • Launch site
  • The above details are then stored into several variables which are later used to update GUI table placeholders.

• obtainData(NORAD_ID):

  • Retrieves user location
  • A request is made to the following url: "https://api.n2yo.com/rest/v1/satellite/positions/NORAD_ID/USER_LOCATION_LATITUDE/USER_LOCATION_LONGITUDE/0/10800/&apiKey=API_KEY"
    • The above API request returns a JSON response that is saved in 'location.json, the response is as follows:

  "info": {
    "satname": "SPACE STATION",
    "satid": 25544,
    "transactionscount": 5
  },
  "positions": [
    {
      "satlatitude": -39.90318514,
      "satlongitude": 158.28897924,
      "sataltitude": 417.85,
      "azimuth": 254.31,
      "elevation": -69.09,
      "ra": 44.77078138,
      "dec": -43.99279118,
      "timestamp": 1521354418
    },
    {
      "satlatitude": -39.86493451,
      "satlongitude": 158.35261287,
      "sataltitude": 417.84,
      "azimuth": 254.33,
      "elevation": -69.06,
      "ra": 44.81676119,
      "dec": -43.98086419,
      "timestamp": 1521354419
    }
  ]
}

• Note that the 10800 in the request url denotes the number of seconds for projected trajectory a user would need (in project case 3 hours)
• The results are then filtered and broken down into 3 variables: sat_latitudes, sat_longitudes and sat_altitude.

Any contributions are appreciated.