Platform Capabilities

End-to-End Space Mission Engineering

Space Mission Designer provides aerospace engineers, researchers, and satellite operators with a complete, scientific-grade mission analysis environment right in the browser.

Astrodynamics Docs →

Orbit Propagation & High-Fidelity Physics

Propagate orbits around Earth and the Moon using analytical or numerical methods with scientific-grade precision powered by Orekit and DP853 adaptive integration.

Key Capabilities

  • Earth & Moon central body support with coordinate frames and gravity models.
  • Propagators: Two-Body (Keplerian), J2 Analytical (Brouwer-Lyddane secular drift), SGP4 (TLE/OMM), and High-Fidelity Numerical.
  • Spherical harmonics gravity fields: EGM2008 for Earth (up to 150×150) and GL0660B GRAIL/LOLA for the Moon (up to 120×120).
  • Environmental force models: NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric drag with bundled CSSI space weather (1947–2096 F10.7 & Ap indices), Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP), Sun/Moon third-body gravity, and general relativity corrections.
  • Flexible orbit definition: Keplerian, Circular, Cartesian (r, v), Sun-Synchronous (SSO by LTDN), Geosynchronous (GSO by longitude), TLE search/paste, and CCSDS OMM.
Visibility & Geometry Docs →

Access Computation & Sensor Visibility

Determine precise line-of-sight visibility windows, pass durations, and contact geometry across complex ground station networks, inter-satellite links, and target areas.

Key Capabilities

  • Multi-object access pairs: Satellite to Ground Station, Satellite to Satellite (ISL), and Constellation to Ground Station.
  • Payload sensor visibility: Mount Conical or Rectangular field-of-view sensors to analyze ground station access, coverage footprints, or celestial body occultation (Sun, Moon, Earth).
  • Area of Interest (AOI) passes: Compute satellite and sensor access over continents, individual countries, or custom drawn and uploaded GeoJSON/Shapefile polygons.
  • Ground illumination constraints: Filter AOI visibility passes by daylight or nighttime solar elevation thresholds for optical imaging planning.
  • Cross-body visibility: Support for Earth satellites to Earth stations, Moon satellites to Moon stations, and Moon satellites to Earth ground networks.
Attitude Control Docs →

Attitude Modes & Target Pointing

Override nominal nadir/ram flight attitude during access passes to model target fixation, imaging slews, and payload pointing schedules.

Key Capabilities

  • Nominal attitude: Standard Local-Vertical Local-Horizontal (LVLH) nadir/ram alignment with configurable body faces.
  • Spotlight pointing mode: Fixate satellite body boresight on specific ground stations throughout contact passes.
  • StripScan pointing mode: Continuous attitude slew aligned with the ground track for push-broom and swath observations.
  • Priority scheduling & deconfliction: Priority-based resolution of overlapping contact intervals with configurable slew buffer times and Nadir lock support.
  • Subsystem synchronization: Pointing changes automatically update solar panel sun angles, sensor footprints, and antenna boresight alignments.
Coverage Analysis Docs →

Sensor Coverage, Figure of Merit & Composed Coverage

Compute sensor swaths, spatial Figure of Merit heatmaps, and multi-satellite Composed Coverages over areas of interest to quantify covered area, revisit gaps, and response times.

Key Capabilities

  • Coverage entries per AOI: Attach any satellite and sensor to a continent, country, or custom polygon to measure what the payload actually observes.
  • Composed Coverage: Combine multiple individual coverages across different satellites and sensors into a unified fleet-level coverage layer and aggregated report.
  • Figure of Merit (FoM) heatmaps: Evaluate Simple Coverage, Revisit Count, Mean Revisit Gap, Max Revisit Gap, and Response Time across configurable equal-area grids and colormaps.
  • Flexible activation plans: Drive coverage from access windows, target-pointing intervals (Spotlight, StripScan, Nadir), or both — with per-access and per-pointing-target selection.
  • Coverage reports & plots: Covered area (km²), percentage of AOI, FoM summary statistics, per-window new-area deltas, time-series plots, and CSV export.
Weather Data Docs →

Weather Data & Cloud Coverage

Overlay real hourly cloud-cover layers over areas of interest and inspect cloud cover, temperature, and precipitation at any ground station — powered by Open-Meteo historical reanalysis and 15-day forecasts.

Key Capabilities

  • AOI cloud coverage layers: Attach one or more animated cloud-cover overlays to any continent, country, or custom polygon, rendered live on the 3D globe with the simulation timeline.
  • Historical & forecast data: Automatic source selection — Open-Meteo reanalysis archive (ECMWF IFS / ERA5) for past dates and operational forecast up to +15 days ahead.
  • Cloud-aware coverage analysis: Filter sensor coverage passes and Figure of Merit cells by a maximum cloud-cover threshold to model optical imaging feasibility.
  • Ground station weather: Hourly cloud cover, 2 m temperature, and precipitation time series for any Earth ground station, with summary statistics and CSV export.
  • Flexible visualization: Single-color density or heatmap colormaps (Turbo, Viridis, Plasma, Inferno, Cool–Warm, custom), min/max cloud cutoffs, opacity, interpolation smoothness, and optional data-point markers.
Fleet Analytics Docs →

Constellation Import & Catalog Analytics

Import entire operational mega-constellations or build custom satellite fleets to evaluate multi-spacecraft coverage, contact density, and orbital statistics.

Key Capabilities

  • One-click predefined catalog import: Load active constellations (Starlink, OneWeb, Iridium, Planet, and more) from live public catalogs.
  • Custom fleet builder: Search and filter catalog satellites by NORAD ID, satellite name, operator, and country of origin.
  • Statistical distribution insights: Interactive histogram filtering by TLE epoch age, satellite launch age, orbital altitude, and inclination.
  • Parallel fleet propagation: Propagate dozens of constellation satellites simultaneously to analyze aggregate ground network contact time.
Spacecraft Design Docs →

Satellite 3D Model Design

Build modular CubeSat configurations using geometric approximations to drive power computations, thermal estimates, drag area, and solar radiation pressure.

Key Capabilities

  • CubeSat bus sizing: Parametric sizing in standard CubeSat units (1U to 100U) for rapid conceptual mission architecture.
  • Face material assignment: Configure each bus face with solar cells (custom efficiency and packing factor) or structural aluminum.
  • Deployable solar panels: Add articulated solar wings with custom hinge faces, deployment angles, trackable sun-pointing mechanisms, and flip orientations.
  • Geometric conflict verification: Automated 3D collision checks between deployed solar panels and the satellite bus structure.
  • Payload mounting: Attach sensors and communication antennas directly to body faces with precise extrinsic Yaw, Pitch, and Roll offset angles.
EPS Subsystem Docs →

Power Budget & Solar Generation

Simulate solar power generation, payload duty cycles, and battery state of charge across the orbit to verify subsystem closure and detect undersizing.

Key Capabilities

  • High-fidelity solar generation: Incident flux calculation (1361 W/m²), sun aspect angles, and 3D geometric self-shadowing between panels and bus.
  • Dynamic power loads: Model constant bus avionics draw plus dynamic payload loads (TT&C radios, cameras, heaters, SDRs, and payload computers).
  • Conditional activation schedules: Trigger payload consumption profiles conditionally based on illumination (sunlight/eclipse) or ground access windows.
  • Battery storage simulation: Model battery capacity (Wh), initial SoC, charge/discharge efficiencies, and Depth of Discharge (DoD) limits.
  • Diagnostic outputs: Generation curves, consumption profiles, net power balance (surplus/deficit), battery discharge curves, DoD breach alerts, and CSV exports.
Data Handling Docs →

Data Budget & Onboard Storage

Model payload data acquisition, downlink transmission rates, and onboard solid-state mass memory buffer fill states to verify data budget closure.

Key Capabilities

  • Data generation instruments: Configure onboard computers, imaging sensors, and SDR payloads with specific collection rates (Mbps) and compression ratios.
  • Conditional acquisition profiles: Trigger data acquisition based on illumination conditions (e.g. daylight observation) or ground access windows.
  • Access-linked downlinks: Map downlink channels directly to ground station contact passes with specified mean transmission data rates (Mbps).
  • Onboard memory buffer modeling: Track cumulative storage fill and drain curves over time (GB) to prevent buffer overflows and ensure budget closure.
Space Environment Docs →

Geomagnetic Field & Space Environment

Evaluate Earth’s magnetic field along the orbit and across the globe for magnetometer-based attitude analysis, magnetic torquer sizing, and space-environment visualization.

Key Capabilities

  • Scientific field models: IGRF-14 internal field with optional Tsyganenko-89 external field driven by solar wind and geomagnetic activity.
  • Global field-line overlay: Magnetosphere field lines traced on McIlwain L-shells and rendered live on the 3D globe at the scenario epoch.
  • Per-satellite field vectors: Local magnetic field direction drawn on the spacecraft in the 3D model viewer for body-frame orientation analysis.
  • Multi-frame time series: |B| magnitude and B x/y/z components in ITRF, GCRS inertial, LVLH, and body frames (nT), plus a Space Environment annotation metric.
  • Scenario-level space weather: Solar wind toggle and Kp index slider (0–6) consistently drive the globe overlay, satellite vectors, and plots.

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