A Better Way to
Design Space Missions

Space Mission Designer (SMD) is a cloud-based space mission analysis and design platform for spacecraft, orbits, ground systems, and mission operations. It combines orbital propagation, spacecraft modeling, power and data budget analysis, ground station access, sensor analysis, constellation visualization, and interactive 3D mission visualization in a single environment.

SMD brings spacecraft modeling, orbital propagation, ground station analysis, power simulation, sensor analysis, constellation visualization, and interactive mission visualization into one integrated environment. Instead of requiring engineers to move between multiple specialized tools for every stage of an early mission study, SMD provides a common workspace for building and exploring the mission. Its browser-based architecture also makes the platform easier to access, share, and adopt across engineering teams, universities, and space organizations.

Yes. Anyone can create a Free Account and explore SMD without a paid subscription. The Free Account includes limited daily usage and access to all major SMD capabilities, including high-fidelity numerical orbit propagation, ground station and satellite access analysis, spacecraft power and data budget analysis, Earth and Moon mission scenarios, 3D visualization, and scenario sharing as a viewer. Pro plans provide higher usage limits and additional capabilities.

SMD is designed for aerospace engineers, spacecraft developers, universities, research laboratories, space startups, mission designers, and students. It can be used for mission concept development, trade studies, spacecraft and orbit analysis, education, research, and engineering workflows.

SMD takes a different approach to space mission design and analysis. Tools such as STK, FreeFlyer, and GMAT are mature and powerful environments with extensive capabilities for specialized flight dynamics and mission analysis. SMD focuses on bringing the mission together in a modern, cloud-based workspace where spacecraft, orbital propagation, ground station access, power and data budgets, sensors, constellations, and interactive 3D visualization can be analyzed as part of the same scenario. SMD is designed to reduce the friction between defining a mission and exploring its behavior, while making mission analysis easier to access, share, and collaborate on. It is not intended to replace every capability of established tools, but to provide a more integrated and accessible workflow for mission design and analysis.

No. SMD runs directly in a modern web browser. There is no desktop software to install or maintain, making it easy to access your mission scenarios from anywhere.

Yes. SMD is designed around cloud-based mission scenarios, so you can share missions and collaborate without exchanging desktop project files. Sharing is role-based: a scenario owner can invite collaborators as either viewers (read-only access) or editors (full edit access). On the Free plan, scenarios can be shared as viewers, letting teammates open and inspect the mission, its satellites, ground stations, and results. On a Pro plan, the owner can additionally grant editor access, so multiple people can modify the same scenario together in real time. This is particularly useful for distributed engineering teams, universities, research groups, and organizations working across multiple locations.

SMD provides different propagation approaches for different mission-analysis requirements. SGP4 is available for efficient propagation of catalog satellites from TLE and OMM data, while high-fidelity numerical propagation can account for effects such as Earth gravity, atmospheric drag, third-body gravity, and solar radiation pressure. The appropriate model depends on the mission and analysis objective.

Yes. SMD uses Orekit for high-fidelity flight-dynamics computations. Orekit is an open-source spaceflight dynamics library used for professional and research applications and provides the foundation for many of SMD’s advanced orbital-analysis capabilities.

Yes. SMD supports TLE and CCSDS Orbit Mean-Elements Message (OMM) data, allowing real spacecraft from public catalogs to be imported and propagated. This makes it possible to work with operational satellites and large real-world constellations instead of limiting analysis to manually created spacecraft.

Yes. SMD can load, visualize, and analyze real satellite constellations using catalog orbital data and SGP4 propagation. You can work with major constellations such as Starlink, OneWeb, Iridium, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou, visualize large numbers of satellites in 3D, analyze constellation-wide ground station access, inspect individual spacecraft, and examine satellite age distributions based on orbital and launch data.

Yes. SMD can calculate satellite visibility and communication opportunities between spacecraft and ground stations, including access windows, elevation constraints, and other geometry required for mission planning. Analyses can be performed for individual spacecraft or across satellite constellations.

Yes. SMD includes spacecraft power analysis covering orbital eclipse periods, solar-array generation, subsystem power consumption, battery state of charge, and energy balance. This allows users to evaluate whether a spacecraft power architecture can support the planned mission and operating modes.

Yes. SMD includes RF link budget analysis for satellite uplink and downlink chains. You can configure transmitter power, carrier frequencies, modulation, receiver figures of merit (G/T), and antenna gain patterns to calculate slant range, free-space path loss, atmospheric attenuation, received power, carrier-to-noise ratio, and link margins over time across each ground station contact.

Yes. SMD models spacecraft data generation and on-board storage alongside ground station communication windows. You can define instrument generation rates, on-board solid-state recorder capacity, and downlink data rates to evaluate recorder fill levels, identify buffer overflow risks, and assess end-to-end mission data latency.

Yes. SMD supports spacecraft sensor modeling and mission geometry analysis, including sensor fields of view and target access. This allows users to study how spacecraft attitude, orbit, sensor geometry, and targets interact during a mission.

Yes. Beyond Earth-orbiting missions, SMD supports lunar mission analysis for spacecraft orbiting the Moon. Spacecraft are propagated in a Moon-centered inertial frame using a high-fidelity lunar gravity field (GL0660B) with Earth and Sun third-body perturbations, and can be visualized in a Moon-centered 3D environment. Ground-station access, link budget, and power analysis are available for lunar satellites using both Earth and Moon ground stations.