VSAT Satellite Tracker

Interactive web map showing real-time positions for 370+ maritime VSAT satellites across 13 operators and 11 service providers.

Features

• Interactive map — Leaflet + CartoDB dark tiles, color-coded by orbit (orange=GEO, blue=MEO, green=LEO)
• 370+ satellites — Inmarsat, Viasat, SES, Intelsat, Eutelsat, O3b, Iridium, Thuraya, and more
• Filter by provider — operators (SES, Intelsat, ...) and service providers (KVH, Marlink, Speedcast, ...)
• Orbit type toggles — show/hide GEO, MEO, LEO independently
• Search — find satellites by name or NORAD ID
• Slant range calculator — click any satellite to compute range, elevation, azimuth, and round-trip delay from an observer location
• Auto-refresh — positions update every 30 seconds
• Sortable data table — click column headers to sort

Satellite Operators

Operator	Orbit	Coverage
Inmarsat	GEO	Global L-band + Ka (GX)
Viasat	GEO	Ka high-capacity
SES	GEO	Global Ku/Ka
Intelsat	GEO	Global Ku/C backbone
Eutelsat	GEO	Europe + Africa Ku
O3b (SES)	MEO	Low-latency Ka equatorial
Iridium NEXT	LEO	Global L-band incl. polar
Thuraya	GEO	Middle East, Asia, Africa
Yahsat	GEO	Middle East/Africa Ka
JCSAT	GEO	Asia-Pacific Ku/Ka
AsiaSat	GEO	Asia-Pacific Ku/C
MEASAT	GEO	SE Asia + Indian Ocean
HYLAS	GEO	Europe + Africa Ka

Service Providers

KVH, Marlink, Speedcast, MTNSAT/Anuvu, NSSLGlobal, Singtel, Navarino, Castor, Globecomm, IEC Telecom — each mapped to the satellite operators they lease capacity from.

API Endpoints

Endpoint	Description
GET /api/health	Health check + satellite count
GET /api/fleet?time=	All satellite positions (default: now)
GET /api/providers	Operator + service provider list
GET /api/provider/{name}	One operator or service provider's satellites
GET /api/satellite/{norad_id}?time=	Single satellite position
GET /api/range?norad_id=&lat=&lon=&alt=	Slant range + RTT from observer
GET /api/search?q=	Search by name or NORAD ID

All position endpoints accept an optional time parameter (ISO 8601 UTC). Default is current time.

Run Locally

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn app:app --port 8000

Open http://localhost:8000. First load fetches TLEs from Celestrak (~15-30s), then all positions are computed from cached in-memory Satrec objects.

Deploy

Render (free tier): Click the deploy button above, or connect the repo at https://dashboard.render.com.

Railway:

railway init
railway up

Any platform — just needs Python 3.10+ and the Procfile:

web: uvicorn app:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port $PORT

Architecture

Single FastAPI app, no database, no auth, no build step.

• app.py — FastAPI routes wrapping SatellitePropagator
• sat_tracker.py — SGP4 propagation engine, TLE cache, coordinate transforms
• static/index.html — single-page frontend (Leaflet map, vanilla JS)

On startup, the lifespan handler preloads all VSAT TLEs from Celestrak into memory. After that, every position request is pure math (SGP4 propagation + TEME-to-geodetic conversion) with zero network calls.

Tech Stack

• Backend: FastAPI, sgp4, NumPy
• Frontend: Leaflet.js, CartoDB dark tiles, vanilla JS
• Data: Celestrak OMM/JSON API