> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.valar.space/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Timeline

> Read every requested station's pass outcome, including why a station shows nothing

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt).

The **Timeline** visualizes computed passes for the spacecraft and ground stations you select, laid out on a shared time axis with one lane per station.

**Route:** `/passes/timeline`

Open the page via the **Timeline** tab in the Passes area's tab bar, alongside the **Table**, **Stations**, and **Coverage Map** tabs.

## Every Requested Station Gets a Lane

Every station you select gets its own lane on the timeline — always, whether or not it has any passes to show. A lane is never dropped just because a station has nothing to report, because "nothing to report" is not one situation; it is three different ones, and the timeline tells you which:

| Outcome                    | What the lane shows                                                                                                        | What it means                                                                                                                       | What to do                                                                                                         |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Evaluated, with passes** | The station's pass bars along the timeline.                                                                                | The station was checked and has visibility windows in this range.                                                                   | Nothing — read the passes as usual.                                                                                |
| **Evaluated, no passes**   | A lane reading **No passes available**.                                                                                    | The station was fully checked against your selection and genuinely has nothing overhead in this window.                             | Nothing — this is a clear result, not a failure.                                                                   |
| **Excluded**               | A muted lane with a message explaining what went wrong (for example, that the station's stored horizon could not be read). | The station's configuration — most often its elevation mask — could not be evaluated, so no result could be computed for it at all. | Re-upload the station's elevation-mask survey from the [Stations](/features/passes/stations) page, then try again. |
| **Not evaluated**          | A muted lane reading **Couldn't evaluate this station**.                                                                   | The computation did not reach a conclusion for this station.                                                                        | Try the request again; contact support if it persists.                                                             |

<Note>
  An excluded station's message describes the station's own configuration problem rather than a generic failure, so it names what to fix instead of just saying something went wrong. If the message doesn't make sense, re-check the station's elevation mask on the [Stations](/features/passes/stations) page.
</Note>

## Why This Distinction Matters

Before this, a station that returned nothing looked the same whether it genuinely had a clear sky or its configuration was broken — there was no way to tell, from the timeline alone, whether to do nothing or to fix something. Because every requested station now always gets a lane and a stated outcome, a clear result and a broken one never look the same.

## Related Pages

* [Passes Overview](/features/passes/overview) — how the Passes area's pages fit together.
* [Elevation Masks](/features/passes/elevation-masks) — what a station's elevation mask is and how it combines with its minimum elevation.
* [Ground Stations](/features/passes/stations) — upload or replace a station's elevation-mask survey.