Historical satellite orbital data app ?

[Geminids]

In the past I have used the ISS Tacker web browser app to provide historical data of the satellite latitude and longitude for past dates and times, but it seems to be broken now 😞 - any pointers on an alternative would be very welcome.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Geminids

[wxsatuser]

How far back do you want to go?

[Geminids]

I need this to do a continuing assessment of ISS passes over the UK that are  "lit" by GRAVES.  I was considering an exercise to do every month and look at what passes there had been and then checking my radio data. I am not sure what would be the best approach; either scanning through hundreds of spectrum lab images,  developing  a conditional action script in Spectrum Lab to detect with  reasonable confidence, ISS scatter.  But I will help to know when and where to look - and I.S.S Tracker gave this 😕

Or maybe there is a way to set up a ISS predictor app that would list upcoming passes over the Channel and UK that would do the job?` Or I could look back at records going back to 2016.

So, in answer to your question, I think that whatever way I do it I would need, say, at lest three months worth of history perhaps.  Ideally ground lat and location. 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Geminids

[wxsatuser]

You could try something like Orbitron, latest Keplers should go back a bit.

[Geminids]

This looks as if it might do the job. I need to get used to the jargon of TLEs and to convert ISS Azm and Elv to ground Lat and Long.   I am checking a GRAVES recorded scatter from 20160729 that was verified at the time with ISS Tracker.  At that time I had

Time                        Lat                  Long 

01:38:00

46.84

0.37

I have set the location to this Lat and Long and running the predictor (sat elevation >0 and min flare mag of 5.0) and using the current  TLE (Keplers) the prediction is way, way  off  at 22.5N ~62E  .  For a LEO would I be right to assume this to be expected for that far back. 

[wxsatuser]

Try these keps for 28/07/2016

ISS
1 25544U 98067A   16210.72553241  .00000963  00000-0  21250-4 0  9991
2 25544  51.6431 210.7749 0002162  83.8331 269.4538 15.54889966 11447

If you want archived keps look here at AMSAT

 

[IanL]

Heavens above has predicted and historic data for the ISS amongst other things. It is more helpful for finding ground tracks once you have identified a pass in in your data though:

https://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=0&lng=0&loc=Unspecified&alt=0&tz=UCT

You need to set your lat/long (at the top right of page), you probably need to set it halfway between your location and GRAVES location to ensure passes that are mutually visible passes are included. You'll figure it out once you look at the ground track maps.

Set passes to 'all' rather than 'visible' since we don't care about daylight or illumination by Sun. Then you can use the arrows at the top of the list of visible passes to go back in time. Once you see a pass that corresponds to your capture you can then click on the pass, and on the detail page there is a link to a ground track map.

Just take care with timings and time zones/daylight savings. The data gives times local to the observer's location not UT, and of course your 'location' may be in Europe not UK. Also Spectrum Lab times tend to drift quite badly for my setup, many minutes out so you need to exercise some judgment to correlate passes and captures.

Still it can be interesting - here's a slide I made overlaying two passes and ground tracks, showing the effect of different ground tracks and rates of change of radial velocity/return frequency for example: