Satellite Tracker10.3.9 - App Store

Satellite Tracker is the follow on to our award winning HamSat series of applications. Satellite Tracker merges all the features of the iPhone and iPad versions providing you a single application that seamlessly optimizes the screen to the device you’re running it on (check out the various iPhone and iPad screen shots).

The application will calculate the rise/set times and associated azimuth and elevation for the selected satellite, Sun or Moon given either the user entered or network retrieved location.

There are two modes for satellite rise/set calculations. The first is for those folks wanting to know all overflights for a given location (like Ham radio operators) while the second mode computes only those passes where the satellite would be visible to a ground observer. In the ground observer mode, the calculations not only take into account that the ground is dark but also that the satellite is in sunlight (it even takes into account if the satellite becomes lit or unlit during the pass)

In addition, you can see the Earth rendered either as a 3D globe or a 2D map using photo realistic texture maps for the Earth model. The orientation of the map is easily changed by a simple rotation of the device from portrait (3D) to landscape (2D). In either orientation you can zoom in and out as well as pan using the touch screen.

There are more than a dozen controls provided to allow you to customize how the application works to meet your specific needs (type of Earth texture used, location, type of overflight calculated...)

Finally, the application is now free to download and provides full functionality for tracking, viewing and communicating with the International Space Station (what was the capability of the ISS family of paid apps). The following subscriptions are available for tracking and communicating with a larger set of satellites:
-HamSat (Annual and Monthly): Provides access to the NORAD and AMSAT two line element sets which cover all amateur related satellites.
-ProSat (Annual and Monthly): Provides access to thousands of satellites grouped into the following categories (from www.celestrak.com):
-100 (or so) Brightest
-Last 30 Day’s Launches (or so)
-Amateur Ham Radio Satellites
-CubeSats
-Disaster Monitoring
-Earth Resources
-Education
-Engineering
-Geodetic
-Geostationary
-GOES
-GPS Operational
-Intelsat
-Iridium
-Molniya
-NOAA
-Orbcomm
-Search & Rescue (SARSAT)
-Space & Earth Science
-Space Station
-Weather

To get a feel for the apps, please checkout the iPad quickstart video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiHCGxV0WM8) and associated user’s guide (http://www.vosworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SatSeriesHD.pdf) or the iPhone quickstart video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuPccQI9oSg) and it’s user’s guide (http://www.vosworx.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SatSeries.pdf).

Please note that InApp payments will be charged to your AppleID account at the confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscription by going to your account settings on the App Store after purchase. For more information, please visit our Terms of Service at http://www.vosworx.com/terms-of-service-for-app and our Privacy Policy at http://www.vosworx.com/privacy-policy-for-apps.

Thanks to everyone who has sent in their questions/requests and keep them coming!

-Craig (support@vosworx.com)

Version History -Tweaked the images to lighten them up a bit on the dark side
-Fixed bug in 2D render logic when the nighttime image is not being used
-Support for CSV format from CelesTrak as Two Line Elements are no longer being updated due to field length limitations of the NORAD ID
-Fixed layout issue that caused the tab bar to become dark after initial selection of a tab 10.3.9 Aug 19 -Optimized the fetching of radios to only get the ones in the SatNOGS Celestrak database.
-Continuing to fix iOS/iPadOS 18 breakage. 10.3.8 05/27/2025 Fixed a number of breakages due to changes in iOS/iPadOS 18. 10.3.7 10/07/2024 Fixed bug in the element download logic that caused an intermittent hang in some situations 10.3.6 09/26/2024 Fixed a typo in a NORAD DB name that caused a failed local sync 10.3.5 09/18/2024 -Re-worked the NORAD retrieval code to conform to the new API definition 10.3.4 09/17/2024 Fixed recent breakage due to iOS change around access to unencrypted web sites (amsat, celestrak, SatNogs...) 10.3.2 07/10/2022 10.3.0
-Added in support for automatically downloading the current set of operational radios for the amateur satellites from the SatNOGS DB. 10.3.0 12/03/2020 -Extensive rework of the AntennaRotor code in advance of the launch of the three axis, auto alignment version
-Support for latest iOS devices 10.2.1 11/14/2020 -Many updates in the rotor code to support a number of external rotor solutions
-Full support for Dark Mode
-Fixed a number of layout issues 10.2.0 09/15/2020 -Doubled the number of trackable satellites from 20 to 40 given the faster processors on the newer devices

-Added in new beta features flag

-Added support for iPad 11

-Added in wireless support for automatically driving an external DIY rotor for automated satellite tracking.

-Added back in the manual DB support button so folks know that's available with a subscription. 10.1.0 09/08/2019 Fixing a bug if you have many satellites on a small device (the text got corrupted when you scrolled) 10.0.1 05/20/2019 10.0.0 05/15/2019