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Satellite · evidence and sources

International Space Station

Largest space station, orbiting since 1998. Crew of 6-7. Research in microgravity.

CelesTrak TLE · 1 d Orbit basis, the same label the app shows on the selection card.

Open in Space Time

Every aspect, with its origin

One record per aspect. The origin says what kind of thing each value is; the source says where it came from; the limit says what it cannot tell you.

ObservedCatalogComputedReconstructedIllustrativeUndocumented
Orbit Catalog

Orbit from a CelesTrak element set

International Space Station is propagated with SGP4 from a CelesTrak two-line element set. The app fetches the current set at runtime and falls back to the bundled snapshot when offline.

SourceCelesTrak · record NORAD 25544
EpochElement epoch inside the TLE (typically hours to a day old)
Retrieved
MethodSGP4 propagation (satellite.js) in the TEME frame, rotated to J2000 for the scene.
UncertaintyKilometre-level within a day of the element epoch; grows to tens of kilometres per day beyond that.
LimitThe bundled snapshot date above is the fallback; a live fetch is usually newer.
Physical data Undocumented

Bulk properties

International Space Station: mean radius 0.1 km. These values are bundled with the object record and drive the rendered size.

SourceBundled object record
LimitThe object catalog does not record where these values came from; treat them as unverified until the record is completed.
Appearance Reconstructed

Close-up hull model

The close-up shows a published 3D model scaled to 109 m deployed truss span. NASA 3D Resources; International Space Station partner agencies.

SourceNASA 3D Resources · record iss
MethodSpace Time normalises the source model to the published deployed dimension.
LimitSource-asset presentation pose; time-dependent flight attitude is not modeled.
Description Undocumented

Description and facts

The short description and the fact list are written by the Space Time authors for orientation. They are not quoted from a catalog field and carry no citation of their own.

SourceSpace Time editorial text
LimitBackground reading is linked under Further reading; it is not the source of the displayed numbers.

What is not measured

  • Appearance: a reconstruction from measurements, not a direct observation. Close-up hull model. Source-asset presentation pose; time-dependent flight attitude is not modeled.

Not yet documented

  • Physical data: The object catalog does not record where these values came from; treat them as unverified until the record is completed.
  • Description: Background reading is linked under Further reading; it is not the source of the displayed numbers.

Dataset freshness

Snapshots this page depends on, read from the generated manifests at request time.
DatasetLast refreshedHorizonAutomated
Bundled satellite element sets (ISS, Tiangong, Hubble)
CelesTrak
 Element epoch in the TLE; the app fetches live sets first and falls back to this bundle Yes, every production build
scripts/refresh-tle.mjs (prebuild)

Sources cited

Further reading

Wikipedia: International Space Station (background only; not the source of the displayed numbers)

More

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Space Time is a free 3D universe explorer by Point Dynamics. Origins: how to read these pages.