Example Resources

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NASA Resources

Approximate Positions of the Planets: Contents of this web page include formulae for calculating orbital position using the Keplerian parameters and a table of the Keplerian parameters for the planets in our solar system.

Small-Body Database Query: This database provides Keplerian parameters for NEOs including PHAs.

Near-Earth Comets - Orbital Elements API | NASA Open Data Portal: Click on the API button to open the JSON file that contains Keplerian parameters for 170 Near-Earth Comets (NEC).

GitHub - nasa/mission-viz: Web-based Space Mission Visualization Software: This repository contains links and source code for the example orreries and tutorials.

Elliptical Orbit Simulator: This tutorial explains how to plot and simulate an orbit using Keplerian parameters. Examples in this tutorial are written in the R programming language. A team with intermediate skills may reuse or port the orbital propagator; if you do so, then please cite the source.

nasa.github.io/mission-viz/RMarkdown/ontology_based_orrery_generated_from_R_code.html: This static orrery, implemented in the R programming language, depicts the planetary orbits of our solar system; it’s interactive, so you can click and drag or zoom in to view the inner planets.

Ontology-driven Orrery: This interactive dynamic orrery was implemented with JavaScript and a free 3D code library. Click and drag to rotate the orrery.

Inner Solar System: A web app that presents an interactive orrery of the inner solar system and displays potentially hazardous asteroids. The source code is JavaScript and includes an orbital propagator. A team with intermediate skills may reuse and adapt the source code; if you do so, then please cite the source. (Please scroll down on the page to see the specific details of equations, etc.).

Web Base Space Mission Visualization System: This paper provides a vision for a public web-based orrery; it describes potential use cases and features. Consider this paper as a source of inspiration for potential design features.

Eyes on Asteroids - Home - NASA/JPL: A NASA static orrery that depicts orbital trajectories and labeled asteroids. You can use your favorite search engine to find web apps for converting Comma Separated Value (CSV) to JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), to learn more about orbital propagators, and to find free open-source code libraries.

You can also use your favorite search engine to research the following topics online:

Keplerian parameters - learn how each parameter shapes or orients an elliptical orbit.
3D graphics code libraries - search for free open-source 3D graphics code libraries.
Orbital propagators - search for tutorials and code libraries; artificial intelligence applications may help in generating code for an orbital propagator.
Free web hosting services –teams could use Github or a similar service as a code repository.

Space Agency Partner Resources

European Space Agency (ESA)

Near Earth Objects Centre (NEOCC): The NEOCC is ESA's centre for computing asteroid and comet orbits and their probabilities of Earth impact.

Canadian Space Agency (CSA)

NEOSSat: With NEOSSat, Canada is contributing to the international effort to catalogue near-Earth asteroids and comets.

Canadian Astronomy Data Center (CADC): The Canadian Astronomy Data Center (CADC) houses the Government of Canada's astronomy open data, including that from the NEOSSat mission.

NEOSSat Tutorial: This tutorial helps users better understand, extract, and visualize NEOSSAT telescope data.

2024 NASA Space Apps Challenge

Create an Orrery Web App that Displays Near-Earth Objects