Samanvay96 / keplerian_orbit_simulator

An orbit simulator that produces a 3D plot and ground trace of any satellite given its TLE data

Orbit Simulator

Description

The purpose of the orbit simulator is to simulator a satellite orbit above the earth. The input of the orbit simulator is TLE data for any satellite. TLE stands for two line element that details the orbital elements of a satellite at a given time. The output is two graphs, one for displaying the 3D plot of the satellite orbit and the other for displaying the groundtrace.

File Structure

orbit_simulate is the main file to be run. functions/ contains all relevant functions to calculate the orbit trajectory. module_conversion/ is a directory of all coordinate transformation functions. TLE_Data/ contains satellite specific tle data.

Running the simulator

1. Add TLE Data file to TLE_Data/
2. Edit the initialise segment of orbit_simulate to include the new TLE Data filename.
3. Change simulation duration if needed, it's defaulted to 86400s (1 day)
4. Run orbit_simulate

TLE Data

TLE Data for most satellites can be obtained from https://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/

Plots