Visualize spacecraft ground tracks on interactive 3D globe
For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt.
The Ground Track page displays real-time and predicted satellite positions on an interactive 3D globe or 2D map. It shows spacecraft orbital paths (ground tracks) and allows you to visualize satellite positions over time.Route:/orbits/ground-track
Automatically switches to ECEF when entering 2D mode
A reference-frame indicator badge appears in the viewer header alongside the ECEF / ECI toggle, showing the active frame (ECEF or ECI). The badge updates as you flip the toggle — it always reflects the frame the rendered geometry is currently expressed in. Hover the badge for the full frame name; click Learn more to open the reference frame catalog.
The map draws each spacecraft from a fresh orbit. A spacecraft’s orbit age is measured from its latest state vector — the position and velocity at an epoch you provide through orbit determination, an OPM import, or manual entry. As that age grows it crosses two levels in turn — the degraded level, then the stale level — and the map reacts differently at each. The track normally draws the moment you open the page; on a stale orbit it waits for you to choose to proceed.What you see depends on the selected spacecraft’s orbit age:
Orbit state
What the map shows
Fresh (within both levels)
The ground track, globe position, and charts draw normally — nothing extra.
The track draws from the platform-fetched public TLE, with an inline aging notice above the map reading This spacecraft’s orbit is stale, the orbit’s age (last determined N days ago), and the level it crossed (exceeds your N-day threshold). When the fallback orbit is itself stale, the notice adds the public-TLE fallback is also stale. The track still draws — the notice is a heads-up, not a block.
The track is held until you choose to proceed. In place of the map, the page shows the same This spacecraft’s orbit is stale panel — with the age and threshold lines — plus a Compute anyway button. Click Compute anyway to draw the ground track and globe position from the stale orbit.
No usable orbit
When a selected spacecraft has no orbit data of any kind to draw from, the map is replaced by a panel reading Can’t compute — {spacecraft} has no usable orbit, explaining that There is no usable orbit data for this spacecraft, so this product can’t be computed. Add tracking data to continue, with an Add orbit data button that opens the Spacecraft page. This is never shown as a raw error.
Both N values are whole days — the spacecraft’s actual orbit age and your configured stale level. The stale and degraded levels are workspace-wide values set once in Settings → Orbits → Orbit age (stale level default 14 days); the same values govern the Keplerian-elements plot and AOI overflight, changed in one place rather than per surface. See Orbit age for the workspace-wide policy and the block message.
Every spacecraft affected at either level is also named in the unified orbit-data-age footer at the bottom of the page — tagged Degraded at the degraded level, or Blocked once past the stale level — so you can see which spacecraft are affected at a glance.
