Satellite Server

Warning: This is still very much a work in progress

Satellite Server provides a satellite tracking system that runs on a Raspberry PI. Setup a single satellite server to manage your TLE collections and make it available to other satellite applications. Also includes a tracking GUI with rotator control.

Features

Browser based Tracking and Rotator Control
Download specific satellite TLE automatically from the Satnogs DB by only specifying a Norad ID (uses api)
Load your own TLE parameters, helpfull for newly launched satellites
Sort satellites of interest in various collections and make those collections available to other programs such as satpc32 and gpredict.

overview

Basic Setup Instructions

Use Raspberry PI Imager to flash Raspberry PI OS Lite (tested with 2022-01-28 release)

You might want to enable ssh but putting an empty file on the sdcard called ssh (no extension)

Once the PI has booted you need to install the following dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo apt-get install python3-numpy

Next up is cloning this repo and installing the python requirements

git clone https://github.com/tomvdb/satellite-server.git
cd satellite-server
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create initial database and configure you qth coordinates

python db_create.py
nano -w app/config.json

You can now start the test server.

python satserver.py

Getting Started

Navigate your browser to http://:8080

To get started you need to add your first satellite. Browse to "Satellites" and click on "Add Satellite". You can now either enter all the details of the satellite into the form, or use the "Query Satnogs DB" section to enter a norad id. (For example the ISS is 25544.

Once you satellite is added you need to add it to a collection. Currently the "Default" Collection is what the main map uses.

Go back to the site home and your satellite will now show. You can select it to get more details and show the orbit and next pass.

Updating TLE files

python update_tle.py

Its recommended to schedule that file via cron (no more than once a day)

Security

This has not been designed to be exposed to the internet. Don't do it!

Rotator Control

Rotator and Radio control is done via Node-Red which is installed on the same Raspberry PI. The tracking application will attempt to connect to a websocket on ws://localhost:1880/ws/rotator. Any azimuth/elevation data received via the websocket will be displayed and any azimuth/elevation data sent will be passed to node-red via the websocket. This allows you to make a node that can control your rotator (or do various other things with the data).

A simple starter node-red flow template is located in the nodered_flow_examples. This flow contains the websocket components and a few basic functions. You can expand this flow to control your rotator and receive data from your rotator.

overview

Send me your node-red flow examples for your rotator control and I will add it into the repo.

Radio Control

Still working on this bit, but will be similar to rotator control. More information coming on this soon.

Known Issues

Lots, its a work in progress. Use the Issues section to report your issues.

Support

Please help test and report feature requests and bugs under the Issues section

You can support this project by Buying me a Coffee!

Credit

Inital Polar Chart Code is from the Satnogs System

Inspiration and Concepts from gpredict

Satellite icons created by Freepik - Flaticon

tomvdb / satellite-server

readme