About

Orbital Relay is a satellite visualization platform: a live 3D globe, a 28,000+ object catalog, conjunction (close-approach) screening, RF link budgets, pass prediction and catalog analytics — built directly on government and public orbital-element data, not a mockup of it.

Eight views, one catalog:

Orbital Relay (/orbit/) — a cinematic 3D globe of the CelesTrak-tracked catalog: stations, debris and constellations with real orbital mechanics.
Space-Track Catalog (/spacetrack/) — search and render the full USSPACECOM object catalog.
Signal (/spacetrack/signal/) — visibility windows, coverage, pass prediction and RF link budgets.
Conjunctions (/spacetrack/conjunctions/) — derived close-approach screening between tracked objects.
Brief (/spacetrack/brief/) — a daily rundown of catalog changes, launches and reentries.
Analytics (/spacetrack/analytics/) — launch history, debris families and country-by-decade trends.
Starlink Constellation (/starlink/) — the live Starlink shell as orbital planes, on its own globe.

For a field-by-field reference of what each view shows and what its derived data terms mean, see the Wiki.

Data sources

Two upstream sources, both public:

Space-Track.org ↗ — the USSPACECOM / 18th Space Defense Squadron catalog: SATCAT and General Perturbations (GP) element sets for every cataloged object. This is the source for the Space-Track Catalog, Signal, Conjunctions, Brief and Analytics views.
CelesTrak ↗ — public GP element sets grouped by constellation and mission type (GPS, Starlink, weather, debris families, and more). This is the source for the Orbital Relay globe and the Starlink Constellation view.

Element sets refresh on a regular ingest cycle — TLE/GP baselines are re-fetched roughly every six hours. The catalog age shown on the home page live-stat strip reflects the most recent ingest.

Data source: Space-Track.org (USSPACECOM / 18th Space Defense Squadron). Redistributed under USSPACECOM express blanket approval for basic SSA data.

This citation is a condition of that redistribution approval, not a courtesy — it accompanies Space-Track-derived data everywhere it appears on this site, including every API response.

How it works

Every object's position is computed, not looked up. Orbital elements (TLEs / GP element sets) are propagated with SGP4 — the same standard orbital-mechanics model used across the tracking community — to derive a satellite's position and velocity at any point in time, including forward and backward along its orbit.

Some fields shown alongside an object are derived rather than reported directly by Space-Track or CelesTrak:

Operator is inferred from the object's name, not an authoritative registry field — it is labeled as derived everywhere it's shown.
Orbital regime (LEO / MEO / HEO / GEO) is classified from the object's computed altitude, not a catalog field.

See the Wiki glossary for the full list of derived terms.

⚠ Conjunction and pass-prediction output on this site is unofficial and must never be used for collision avoidance or operational maneuver decisions. It is a derived screening pass over public element sets, not an official conjunction data message (CDM).

Privacy

There are no user accounts anywhere on this site, and no cookies are set for visitors. Nothing you enter into a search box, filter, or form is sent anywhere other than this site's own API to fetch catalog data.

A minimal, anonymous pageview beacon runs on every page to understand traffic. Per pageview, it records:

Timestamp and the page path visited
Referring site's origin only (never a full referring URL)
Country, derived from the request (not city- or address-level)
A one-way hash of your IP address, salted and rotated daily — this supports counting unique visitors per day without the raw IP being stored, and the hash cannot be linked across different days
A coarse device class (mobile, tablet, or desktop) — never the raw browser user-agent string

Automated crawlers and bots are detected and excluded from these counts. This data is used only to understand which views are used and roughly how much traffic the site gets — it is never sold or shared with third parties.

Legal

Orbital Relay is an independent, non-commercial project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of USSPACECOM, the 18th Space Defense Squadron, Space-Track.org, or CelesTrak.

All orbital data is redistributed under Space-Track.org's published terms for basic space situational awareness (SSA) data, and under CelesTrak's public terms of use, both linked above. This site adds no claim of authority beyond what those sources provide.

This site and the views, positions, screenings and predictions it renders are provided for informational and educational purposes only, with no warranty of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose — including, as stated above, collision avoidance or any operational or safety-critical decision. Use of computed or derived data (orbital positions, conjunctions, pass predictions, link budgets) is at your own risk.