Orbinauts

How many satellites and other objects are in orbit around Earth right now, counted by kind (satellites, rocket bodies, debris, unidentified) and by orbit (low, medium, inclined geosynchronous, geostationary, highly elliptical). Call it when asked how many satellites there are, how crowded space is, or how much debris is in orbit. Takes no parameters beyond the language. It cannot name or find one satellite.

The close approaches between objects in orbit that Space-Track reports publicly: two objects predicted to pass within about a kilometre of each other, with the time of closest approach in UTC, the miss distance, the chance of collision where one is stated, and the two objects named. Coming ones first, then those of the last thirty days. Call it when asked whether satellites are about to collide, what is close to the ISS, or what is happening in orbit this week. It lists close approaches alone: the manoeuvres, breakups and rendezvous of the same window are on the Events page, not here. It cannot predict approaches Space-Track has not reported, and a reported approach is rarely a collision.

Who is aboard each space station right now (the International Space Station and Tiangong), as Launch Library lists their expeditions: each person's name, role, agency, the flight that brought them and the day it docked, with the crew changes of the last two days. Call it when asked who is in space, who is on the ISS, how many people are in orbit, or who is aboard Tiangong. Takes no parameters beyond the language. It does not know where a station is now and lists nobody outside a station.

Rocket launches coming up in the next sixty days and launched in the last thirty, from Launch Library 2: for each, the rocket and the mission, what it carries and where it is bound, the launch site, its time as exactly as the provider states it (a minute, a day, a month) in UTC, and its status (go, tentative, success, failure). Call it when asked what launches next, what launched recently, when a named launch is, or what is launching this week. Times move often; a tentative launch may slip. It cannot say where a satellite already in orbit is or when it passes overhead.

When satellites pass over a place in the next ten days, in the place's local time: for one satellite, every pass with its rise, highest point and set, and whether it can be seen; with no satellite named, the passes a person can see with the naked eye (the ISS, Tiangong, Hubble and the other bright ones), soonest first. Call it when someone asks when they can see the ISS or any satellite from a city, or what passes over them tonight. Name the place (a city: Madrid, Brisbane, Buenos Aires, in English or Spanish) and the answer uses that place's time zone; or give latitude and longitude, and the answer is in UTC unless time_zone names a zone. A name several cities share is computed for the largest, and the answer names the others so you can ask again for one of them. Passes are predictions from the latest orbit data; a visible pass is one in a dark sky with the satellite in sunlight, at least ten degrees up and bright enough; it says nothing about clouds. It cannot answer for a geostationary satellite, which never rises or sets, and the place name or coordinates sent are computed with and never stored or logged.

Which objects in orbit are expected to fall back to Earth within the next week, each with the window Space-Track predicts (a start and an end in UTC, never a place), and which came down in the last ninety days, each with the day the catalogue dates its re-entry. Satellites, rocket bodies and debris alike, named as the catalogue names them. Call it when asked what is about to fall from orbit, whether a named object has re-entered, or what came down recently. It cannot say where anything will fall or fell: Space-Track publishes no place, only a time window or a day.

Where one satellite is right now: the point on the ground beneath it, its altitude and speed, what it is over (a country or a sea), whether it is in sunlight or in the Earth's shadow, the orbit it is on, and what it is: its kind, its launch day and mass where the site has written them, and for a space station who is aboard, for a navigation satellite whether it is in service. Takes the satellite's alias (iss, hubble, tiangong) or catalogue number. It cannot predict when the satellite passes over a place and cannot answer for a constellation as a whole.

Finds satellites and other tracked objects by name, alias or catalogue number, in the catalogue of everything in orbit. Call it when a person names a satellite in words (Hubble, Starlink, Tiangong, a GPS satellite) to learn its catalogue number and alias. Each match says what the object is (a space station, a telescope, a rocket body, debris), which orbit it flies, whether it can be seen with the naked eye, and its page where it has one. It cannot tell where a satellite is now or when it passes over a place.