STS Plus Tracking program

In our conversation last week I spoke of the two (2) software programs for tracking the ISS (International Space Station). Given you are not able to run these programs on your in-house computer system, I thought I'd put together a demo of the screen images that would be used during our event.

The STS Plus program is DOS-based -- but runs very nicely in a full-screen window under Win-98 SE and later software releases. Once the program is set up with all user specific options, the program sources the latest TLE's or Two Line Elements that correctly position the ISS within the program and enable accurate tracking of the ISS from any ground station..

In the following screen shots you'll see the ISS track in orbit up over Japan towards our relative location. While this pass imagery is purely for demonstration purposes -- I think you'll see the power of the images and when shot in real-time, will make for great run up (and real time) source material. When the tracking is viewed in real time, the imagery is far more brilliant on screen than the following DOS (Print Scrn) screen captures.

Image #1

From the data in the lower right-hand corner of this image you can see the ISS (the white double-T icon) is 8 minutes and 55 seconds from my location at a distance of 2967 nm (nautical miles) and currently at -20 degrees elevation. There are two circles; one around ISS, the other around my location (VE7AVV). These signify the foot print of the ISS and the usability of the ISS when overhead at my location.

Image #2

In this image we begin to see closure on my location as we're only 1 minute and 53 seconds from acquisition of the ISS which is now 1565 nm up-range at an elevation of -4.81 degrees below the horizon.

Image #3

I've now switched to the lower level mapping imagery. At 1240 nm out and just peaking above the horizon, the ISS would now be in position to begin delivering a radio signal. While this pass is marginal in terms of usability, it would still deliver good communications for a packet radio signal -- but not a good quality voice signal. During our event, the ISS will transit directly over our location.

Image #4

The ISS is now 5 degrees above the horizon and 962 nm downrange from my location. This would make for a great packet radio signal exchange (via the repeater onboard ISS) with other amateur radio stations on the west coast.

Image #5

In order to ensure we deliver a varied series of imagery to your viewers, we can source this alternate pov (point of view).

The program shown above is called STS Plus and is available free of charge to all interested parties. You can go the STS page by clicking STS

The other program I referred to is called Satscape. It's Windows-based and you can take a look at that program by clicking Satscape

STS Plus -- Tracking the ISS