Ground Station Operator
Foundations of geographic information systems applied to space. By the end you can load, project, and visualize coordinate data, plot every active orbital launch pad on Earth, and reason about coordinate systems and datums without confusion. The capstone delivers a styled global launch-site atlas.
What you'll learn
- Explain the difference between geographic (lat/lon) and projected coordinate systems, and choose the right one for a task.
- Identify the correct datum (WGS84 vs alternatives) for satellite-derived data.
- Load vector and raster GIS data into QGIS, style it, and export a publication-grade map.
- Plot global launch sites and compute basic spatial relationships (distance, nearest neighbor).
Prerequisites
None. Comfortable with basic computing (open files, install software). Some Python helpful but not required.
Tools you'll use
QGIS 3.x · Python 3.11+ · geopandas · shapely · pyproj
Weekly curriculum (4 weeks)
- Week 1 What is GIS? Coordinate systems and datums
- Week 2 Vector vs raster, and map projections
- Week 3 QGIS hands-on: load, style, export
- Week 4 Plotting global launch sites (Capstone 1 week) Capstone 1
Why this track matters from Hawaiʻi
Track 1 is the foundation everyone starts with. Coordinate systems, projections, QGIS, and putting every active orbital launch pad on Earth onto a map. The Hawaiian wayfinding tradition is, in its own way, the same skill: knowing precisely where you are, where you came from, and where you're going, on a curved Earth. By the end of this track you will have a working vocabulary in both — Polynesian wayfinding and modern WGS84 — and you'll see they're describing the same ocean.
Capstone 1: Global Launch Site Atlas
Map every active orbital launch pad on Earth.
Build a GeoJSON FeatureCollection of all currently-active orbital launch pads worldwide (~20 sites). Each feature has properties: name, country (ISO 3166), operator, status (active/proposed/retired), vehicles flown, first orbital launch year, latest orbital launch year, latitude, longitude. Style the layer in QGIS by operator and country. Compose a publication-quality print layout: title, legend, scale bar, north arrow, attribution. Export the final map as a PDF at A2 size.
Read full capstone brief →/academy/verify/{certId}/. Certificate issuance is included with LaunchDetect Gold ($9.99/month). The entire curriculum is free.