Tracking the International Space Station (ISS) using Google Colab - SpaceLife

Image: @bing

Tracking the International Space Station (ISS) using Google Colab is a fun and educational project that can be completed in a few steps. Here's how you can do it:

First, you will need to create a Google Colab notebook and make sure you have the necessary libraries installed. You will need the astropy library to handle celestial coordinate transformations, and the skyfield library to compute the ISS's position. You can install these libraries by running the following code in a Colab cell:

!pip install astropy

!pip install skyfield

Next, you will need to obtain the ISS's TLE (Two-Line Element) data. This data is a set of orbital elements that describes the ISS's current position and velocity. You can obtain the TLE data from a number of sources, such as NASA's Human Spaceflight website or Celestrak.

Once you have the TLE data, you can use the skyfield library to compute the ISS's position. The following code demonstrates how to do this:

from skyfield.api import Loader

from skyfield import almanac

import numpy as np

# Load the TLE data

lines = ['ISS (ZARYA)',

         '1 25544U 98067A   20137.68429167  .00003136  00000-0  42665-4 0  9997',

         '2 25544  51.6437 350.0648 0010985  44.8602  37.2892 15.54155945236888']

satellites = Loader().tle(*lines)

iss = satellites['ISS (ZARYA)']

# Set the time for which you want to compute the ISS's position

t = almanac.utc(2022, 1, 1)

# Compute the ISS's position

position = iss.at(t).position.km

# Print the position

print(position)

This code will compute the ISS's position in kilometers relative to the center of the Earth at the specified time.

Finally, you can use the astropy library to convert the ISS's position to celestial coordinates, such as right ascension and declination. The following code demonstrates how to do this:

from astropy.coordinates import CartesianRepresentation, CIRS, EarthLocation

from astropy import units as u

# Convert the ISS's position to a CartesianRepresentation object

position_cartesian = CartesianRepresentation(position[0] * u.km, position[1] * u.km, position[2] * u.km)

# Convert the position to celestial coordinates using the CIRS frame

iss_coordinates = position_cartesian.represent_as(CIRS)

# Print the celestial coordinates

print(iss_coordinates)

This code will output the ISS's celestial coordinates in the CIRS (Celestial Intermediate Reference System) frame. You can use these coordinates to plot the ISS's position on a celestial map or to compute the ISS's elevation and azimuth from a particular location on Earth.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.