Sensor

A sensor defines a field of view on your satellite. Sensors are used in access analysis to determine when a target — a ground station, an area of interest, or a celestial body — falls within the sensor’s footprint.

Adding a sensor

1. In the Scenario tab, find the satellite in the satellite list.
2. Open the satellite’s more options menu (...).
3. Select Add New Sensor.

This opens the Sensor Settings modal. To edit an existing sensor, expand the satellite in the list and click the sensor’s name.

Sensor settings

Field	Description	Range / Options
Sensor Name	Free text	Defaults to “New Sensor” (auto-numbered)
Sensor Type	Field-of-view geometry	Conical or Rectangular
Color	Display color in 3D views	Color picker
Orientation Frame	Reference frame in which the sensor is mounted	Body (default) or LVLH
Mounting Face	Which face/axis the sensor boresight starts from	X+, X-, Y+, Y-, Z+, Z- (labeled Nadir, Zenith, Ram, Anti-Ram, Right, Left)
Aperture	Field of view angles	Conical: single Full Angle (0–180°). Rectangular: separate Cross-Track and Along-Track angles (0–180° each).
Yaw	Rotation around the nadir (Z) axis	-180° to 180°
Pitch	Rotation around the cross-track (Y) axis	-90° to 90°
Roll	Rotation around the ram (X) axis	-180° to 180°

Rotations are extrinsic and applied in Yaw → Pitch → Roll order about the LVLH triad (nadir / cross-track / ram).

Default values

Field	Default
Orientation Frame	Body
Mounting Face	Z+
Sensor Type	Conical
Full Angle	60°
Yaw / Pitch / Roll	0°
Color	#ff6600

Orientation frame: Body vs. LVLH

The Orientation Frame setting determines whether the sensor is fixed to the physical spacecraft bus or to the orbital reference frame:

Body (default)

• Mounting Face names a physical face of the satellite bus (e.g. Z+ is the +Z face of the CubeSat model). The directional label in parentheses (Nadir, Ram, etc.) reflects how that bus face is currently mapped in the Model tab.
• The sensor rotates with the spacecraft body, including Target Pointing slews (Spotlight and StripScan) and any changes to the satellite’s Nadir/Ram Face configuration in the Model tab.
• Use Body for instruments bolted to the spacecraft structure that slew whenever the satellite slews.

LVLH (orbit-fixed)

• Mounting Face names an axis of the Local-Vertical Local-Horizontal (LVLH) orbit frame directly (Z+ = Nadir, Z- = Zenith, X+ = Ram/velocity, X- = Anti-Ram, Y+ / Y- = Right / Left cross-track), regardless of how the spacecraft bus is oriented.
• The sensor stays fixed relative to the orbit frame even if the satellite’s Nadir/Ram faces are reconfigured in the Model tab or the body slews during target pointing.
• Because an LVLH-fixed sensor’s field of view does not depend on body attitude, its access windows are independent of target pointing — allowing LVLH-fixed sensor accesses to be used directly as inputs in the Target Pointing scheduler without circular dependencies.

Sensor types

Conical

A cone-shaped field of view defined by a single full angle. The sensor “sees” everything within that cone from the boresight axis. Simple and common for cameras and narrow-beam instruments.

Rectangular

A rectangular (pyramidal) field of view with independent cross-track and along-track angles. Useful for push-broom imagers or sensors with asymmetric apertures.

Visualizing sensors

Sensors are rendered in two places:

• Model tab — the 3D CubeSat viewer shows each visible sensor as a translucent cone or rectangular pyramid on its mounted face. Use the show/hide toggle in the Model sidebar to control visibility.
• Scenario globe — the 3D globe view shows the sensor footprint projected on the ground during access analysis.

Using sensors in access analysis

Sensors are used as Object 1 in the access computation form. Set Object 1 Type to Sensor, then select a sensor from the list (labeled as satellite name — sensor name).

Available targets (Object 2)

Target	Availability
Ground Station	Always. Earth satellites see Earth stations; Moon satellites see all stations.
Area of Interest (AOI)	Earth sensors only. Moon satellites cannot compute access to Earth AOIs.
Satellite	Always.
Sun	When Object 1 is a sensor.
Moon	When Object 1 is an Earth sensor.
Earth	When Object 1 is a Moon sensor.

When targeting an AOI, you can enable illumination filtering to restrict visibility windows to daylight or nighttime conditions.

What each combination tells you

• Sensor → Ground Station: when the ground station is within the sensor’s field of view.
• Sensor → AOI: when the area of interest is within the sensor’s footprint (with optional illumination constraints).
• Sensor → Sun / Moon / Earth: when the celestial body is within the sensor’s field of view — useful for stray-light or occultation analysis.

Limitations

• The satellite must be propagated before its sensors appear in the access selector.
• Hidden sensors are excluded from access analysis. Toggle visibility from the satellite list (eye icon).
• No duplicate pairs: the same sensor and target combination cannot be added twice.
• Moon satellites cannot target Earth AOIs.
• Deleting a sensor also deletes any access analyses that used it.
• Editing a sensor triggers recomputation of any existing accesses that use it.
• Sensor rotations are limited to: yaw/roll ±180°, pitch ±90°.

Next steps

• Access — use sensors as access sources
• Area of Interest — sensor-to-AOI access with illumination filtering
• Target Pointing — attitude overrides that affect sensor pointing
• Model — visualize sensors on the 3D satellite model