Orbit raise and a global view of Operations
Choose how to raise your orbit
Our orbit-raise algorithm compares minimum-fuel and fastest options for reaching a higher target orbit. Set the target, planning window, and propellant budget, then compare duration, propellant use, and the remaining reserve before choosing a plan. Review the trajectory and thrust/coast schedule alongside the result, with clear feedback when the target or spacecraft constraints prevent approval.
One map experience across Operations
The new global map brings spacecraft, ground stations, and AOIs into one layered Operations view. Move from the full fleet to a selected spacecraft, browse objects in a floating panel, and inspect passes without losing geographic or time context. Ground Track, AOIs, station previews, and pass geometry share maps that follow your light or dark theme. The global view carries forward Ground Track's 2D and 3D views, reference-frame controls, and playback, preserving selection and layers across views. Spacecraft load progressively, and map navigation stays available during orbit preparation.
Improvements
- Areas of interest Opportunity details: inspect off-boresight angle, slant range, and modeled ground sample distance alongside map playback. Preview individual opportunities from the timeline and keep the selected event in view.
- Ground stations Opportunities and contact windows: inspect a station's next seven days in one heatmap, then review a contact's ground track, elevation, and azimuth with synchronized playback. Split contact windows remain grouped under their overflight, with usable contact time, total span, and gaps shown separately. Select the exact window to inspect or book; refreshed results distinguish an empty forecast from missing or incomplete coverage.
- Ground stations Station lifecycle: activate or deactivate a station without deleting its configuration or recorded passes. Inactive stations stop contributing new pass computations.
- Ground stations Faster forecasts and inspection: station lists load more efficiently, and opportunities refresh and open faster for inspection. Timelines, station opportunities, and schedule exports use consistent current results.
- Ground stations Surveyed station geometry: elevation masks retain native, irregular, and sub-degree azimuth samples. Station altitude entry supports mean sea level using EGM2008, with the height reference preserved for conversion to ellipsoid geometry.
- Interface A consistent workspace: refreshed typography, controls, cards, tables, dialogs, and navigation now extend across Operations and the sign-in and password-recovery screens. Shared maps and controls support both themes.
- Interface Reporting: Usage and Analytics now have separate pages with shared spacecraft and date filters. Analytics compares orbit-solution quality, conjunction exposure, maneuver records, and booked contact time across periods, alongside current fleet orbit age.
- Interface Quicker loading: faster dashboard loading, more responsive charts, and smoother spacecraft selection.
- Measurements Find imported data: measurement types show counts, the page initially selects a populated type, and successful imports offer a direct link to the imported spacecraft and UTC dates. Explicit type selections and shared URLs remain respected.
- Measurements Large datasets: measurements become usable as they load, with progress and retry controls. Table and plot selections stay synchronized.
- Measurements Import targets: review resolved spacecraft identifiers before committing supported measurement, orbit-data, conjunction, and maneuver imports. Ambiguous or conflicting identifiers receive explicit resolution controls.
- Orbits Bulk residual cleanup: accumulate selections across residual plots, stage rejection or restoration with undo, and save the batch before recomputing once. Saved solutions offer Refine orbit, using their state vector and measured time span to start a new configuration for review. Existing solutions and stored residuals remain unchanged.
- Orbits Six-digit catalogue support: public orbital elements preserve full catalogue identifiers and their source epoch without requiring a traditional TLE. Fitted TLE export uses Alpha-5 for identifiers 100000–339999 and reports unsupported identifiers above that range instead of truncating them.
- Spacecraft Catalogue selection: link a spacecraft to its public catalogue record, or explicitly mark it as not yet catalogued. Linked NORAD and COSPAR identifiers remain consistent while the spacecraft name stays editable.
- Spacecraft Orbital reference: the spacecraft cheatsheet now separates orbital reference and Operations information, with clearer orbit-age details and independent loading for position and TLE data.
- Spacecraft Unsaved-change protection: cancelling an edited spacecraft card asks before discarding unsaved changes.
Fixes
- Areas of interest AOI opportunities refresh when payload settings change and show their computation age. Modeled ground sample distance is now available for reachable off-nadir and very short opportunities. Improved timeline alignment and event selection.
- Attitude Attitude profile output now consistently uses the documented EME2000 reference frame.
- Conjunctions Clearer CDM import errors and more reliable NORAD/COSPAR matching. Multi-spacecraft and criticality filters preserve correct pagination and totals. EUSST conjunction updates remain available when ephemeris uploads are paused.
- Ground stations Corrected contact-window boundaries and obstruction handling for irregular elevation masks. Pass geometry preserves the individual windows within a masked overflight and uses the spacecraft's applicable altitude.
- Ground stations Improved booking continuity, timeline refresh recovery, and restoration of selections from shared URLs. Booked passes remain visible when forecasts refresh or fail, and missing coverage is distinguished from an evaluated empty result. Timeline presets now use exact durations, including 168 hours for Next 7 days, with smoother scrolling and keyboard navigation.
- Interface Improved keyboard navigation, dialog behavior, and recovery from failed saves. AOI coordinate drafts survive validation, spacecraft panel edits persist, and spacecraft deletion is more reliable. Rapid edits no longer apply stale validation or duplicate saves, and switching workspaces closes incompatible dialogs and routes.
- Measurements Imported position/velocity observations appear under the correct type and date range. Failed import retries preserve successful files and their results, and orbit-determination configuration loads the full measurement selection. OEM covariance matches tolerate equivalent epoch representations without relaxing the requirement for covariance at each state epoch.
- Measurements Required source data: imports now reject missing measurement uncertainty instead of substituting defaults. TDM requires configured sensor uncertainty and declared Doppler conventions; OEM requires covariance at each state epoch; SP3 requires paired position/velocity records and component accuracy. Correct the named input before retrying.
- Orbits Missing physical inputs and results now remain explicitly unavailable instead of appearing as estimated values. Calculations that depend on them explain what must be supplied before continuing. Previously stored values are not automatically repaired.
- Orbits Orbit determination distinguishes convergence from acceptance: only accepted solutions can supply operational states. Historical solutions without acceptance evidence require reassessment or recomputation before operational reuse.
- Orbits Restored visibility of older state vectors and corrected public-orbit initialization when changing spacecraft. Public-orbit epochs retain their precision, and position data remains available while TLE data loads.
API
- Measurement uploads.
POST /operations/measurementsnow includes optionalmeasurementContextin each file result, with spacecraft IDs, measurement types, and the UTC start and end dates of stored measurements. Files with future measurement epochs return a structured per-file error. Uploads also enforce the uncertainty, covariance, velocity, and Doppler requirements described above; a file rejected for missing uncertainty stores no observations, while successful sibling files remain imported. - Spacecraft catalogue identifiers.
POST /operations/spacecraftandPATCH /operations/spacecraft/{id}now acceptcatalogueNoradIdto derive NORAD and COSPAR identifiers from the catalogue, ornotYetCataloguedto mark an uncatalogued spacecraft. Spacecraft responses include both fields, and NORAD identifiers now support values up to999999. - Spacecraft panels.
PATCH /operations/spacecraft/{id}now accepts{ "panels": [] }as the sole update to remove all panels.
