NASA - SatCORPS - CloudSat Orbital Prediction Tools

EXTRANAVBAR
************************************************************************************************************************************************ START MAIN CONTENT HERE. ************************************************************************************************************************************************

Satellite Overpass Closest Approach Predictor

Satellite Overpass Closest Approach Predictor

Welcome to NASA Langley's satellite overpass closest approach predictor. This tool calculates 16 day closest approach estimate of a spacecraft to a ground site location.

CloudsatToday The software to calculate closest approach estimates was written by Donald P. Garber.
Satellite Name
Min Satellite Elevation to report
Max Distance (km) to report
Orbit time step increment to use:
   2   4   8   10   seconds
smaller value = more accuracy = longer compute time (may take upto 1 min to process)
Enter a Ground Site Location Lat/Lon
     Latitude 
     Longitude (East+) 
Or    
report error or add site lat/lon

The errors of these predictions grow beyond the first 2-3 days, and this website should be checked daily for the updated predictions based on current TLEs. Under normal conditions, the CloudSat grountrack will repeat withing +/-20 km cross-track every 16 days. Orbit maneuvers to keep CloudSat in formation with the A-Train (i.e. that maintain the 16-day repeating groundtrack) are performed every few days which will alter the predictions. Again, this website should be checked daily. Website users should check the lat/lon recorded for their site and notify us of any changes or errors. The predictions are based on a single point at this lat/lon, and do not account for an extended site. For all these reasons, we strongly advise that ground-based radio astronomy sites operation at/near 94 GHz not be pointed at the zenith at any time that CloudSat is predicted to pass over the sight with an elevation angle >80 degrees.
**** END MAIN CONTENT HERE. ****