Orbitron is a satellite tracking system for radio amateurs and observing purposes. It’s also used by weather professionals, satellite communication users, astronomers, UFO hobbyist and even astrologers.
The first artificial satellite was put in the space on October 4, 1957 by the Russians. It was named Sputnik 1, and spent 92 days in Earth orbit. Since then man has launched thousands of rockets, and put thousands of satellites in orbit. There are more than 8000 objects in orbit now, including operational, non-operational, rocket bodies, and debris. They are orbiting at an altitude from 150, up to several thousands kilometres. For more than ten years people have been able to track satellites on a computer using satellite tracking software like Orbitron.
Orbitron shows the positions of satellites at any given moment, in real or simulated time. It’s FREE and it’s probably one of the easiest and most powerful satellite trackers, according to opinions of thousands of users from all over the world. Orbitron comes with many features of which some are listed below…
* NORAD SGP4/SDP4 prediction models
* 20 000 satellites can be loaded from TLE file(s) (auto: PC/Unix, 2/3 line)
* ALL satellites can be tracked at the same time
* Sun and Moon tracking
* Full-screen, presentation modes
* Supported screen resolutions from 640×480
* Real-time mode / Simulation mode (free time control)
* Advanced passes & Iridium flares search engine (results printing)
* Nightlife (dark color-scheme for night usage)
* Orbit info
* Radar
* Database of satellite frequencies
* Rotor/radio control (built-in or user’s driver support)
* and many, many, more…
This is the program used by members of SYRG to track the ISS when it is transmitting data and also for tracking AO-51. There are thousands of satellites out there and many we as amateurs can talk or send data too. Orbitron also shows you uplink and downlink frequencies needed as well as the ability to forecast the next pass for each satellite.
This software not only tracks satellites, at any given time it will also show you if they are out of control and therefore not in use or what there uplink and down link frequencies are making contact far easier… for anyone having any problems setting up Orbitron help can be found on the orbitron forum or you can ask Ian – M6DER in the SYRG forum
Orbitron can be downloaded from http://www.stoff.pl/
