Real-Time Satellite Tracker
Cesium globe + live ISS/Starlink + visible passes + 24h replay.
The brief
Build a Cesium-based web application that shows real-time positions of the ISS and a configurable Starlink shell on a 3D globe. The user supplies a latitude/longitude; the app shows the next 5 visible passes (elevation > 30°) at that location. Click any satellite to inspect orbital elements (TLE epoch, inclination, mean motion, period). A time slider lets the user replay the last 24 hours of positions.
From Hawaiʻi — what this capstone asks of you
Mauna Kea and Haleakalā are both world-class satellite-spotting sites at altitude. When you build your Cesium tracker, set the observer location to one of them and watch the ISS sweep overhead at 1× speed. The 3D view from a Hawaiian summit looking up — that's the perspective Pacific wayfinders carried in their heads for centuries, now visible to anyone with a browser.
Rubric
- Cesium globe loads and renders without console errors
- ISS position updates at ≥1 Hz with no visible stuttering
- Visible-pass calculation matches a reference (e.g. n2yo.com) within 30 seconds
- Click-to-inspect popup shows all required orbital elements correctly
- Time-slider replay covers 24 hours and animates smoothly
- Code is deployable as a static site (no backend required)
Deliverable
Static web app (HTML+JS+CSS) deployable to GitHub Pages or S3, plus a 2-minute demo video
Dataset
https://github.com/ops-sketch/academy-labs/tree/main/capstones/04-realtime-tracker
Earned credential
Successful completion of this capstone (all rubric items met) mints the Certified Mission GIS Engineer certificate at /academy/verify/{certId}/.