Visual SAT-Flare Tracker 3D Online
www.satflare.com - TUTORIAL

3.0    Selecting the satellite to track

BASIC SELECTION

The online tracker is capable of tracking all known satellite orbiting the Earth (currently more than 15.000 objects,  including active satellites, non operational satellites and debris). Every tracked object has a NORAD catalog number which is a progressive number assigned to each object put in orbit. As an example, the International Space Station has got the NORAD number 25544 (the object with NORAD 1 was the Sputnik 1 launch vehicle)

Also the tracker mainly uses the NORAD number to identify objects. The simplest way to select a satellite knowing its NORAD number is to specify it directly into the URL using the parameter q. As an example, to track the International Space Station just request the page with the following address:

www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=25544

In some cases, alias might be used to identify special satellites or constellation of satellites. For example, if you want to track the METOP satellites you can use the name instead of the Norad number, as follow:

www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=Metop

In this case both satellites (Metop-A and Metop-B) will appear in the tracker. The online software, in fact, is capable to track far more than just one object simultaneously. Depending on the performance of your computer (and browser) you could be able to track even 100 - 1000 objects simultaneously.

Links to the most important and tracked objects may appear at the top of the page as tabs, as shown in the following picture:

Satellite Tab Selection

The list of tabs may change from time to time, depending on the current events, however a few elements are almost always present, which are:

International Space Station (ISS) - This tab loads into the tracker the International Space Station and other related objects (such as other stations, Soyuz. etc..)
Iridium - This tab loads into the tracker all the Iridium Satellites (about 90 objects)
Visual - This tab loads into the tracker the main objects that are usually visible to the unaided eye (about 150 objects).

Under the list of tabs two additional rows show the top-list of most tracked satellites and the list of satellites whose expected decay is imminent. By clicking on the satellite name, the tracker will load and track the related object.

PERSONAL LIST - FOR REGISTERED USER ONLY

Registered users have the possibility to define a personal list of favourite objects. An additional Tab with the name Track Your List will appear in the tab list and it can be used to load all the objects of the personal list. In addition, above the Google Map, three functions will appear to work with the personal list (see the following picture):

User List and Multi Sat

When dealing with more than one satellite, all the objects are usually simultaneously plotted in all the graphical windows (Google Map, 3D Globe and Sky-Chart), in addition the number of object actually loaded is shown above the 3D globe in the title bar (see the previous picture). However, only the orbit of one object is shown. This object is called Working Sat and the name if shown in the title bar above the maps. It is possible to change the Working Sat simply by clicking on a different satellite in the Google Map or in the Sky Chart. To select a different Working Sat by its name, instead, it is possible to click on the Loaded Sat label next to the number of loaded sat. This will create and show the list of all the currently tracked objects.


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