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[thkruz]

Over the last few weeks I have been working to pull most of the math out of KeepTrack and making it available in two libraries ootk and ootk-core. For most people looking to do basic calculations on where satellites are, ootk-core should be everything you need. It is a full replacement for satellite.js and suncalc.js, along with a lot of other helpful functions and classes. Over the years I have run into so many bugs caused by incorrect units (radians vs degrees gets me a lot). Both ootk and ootk-core are heavily typed using non-interchangeable unit types like Radians and Degrees to prevent those kind of mistakes. If you are using pure JavaScript they won't impact you, but if you are in TypeScript it will help eliminate a lot of silly mistakes when working with angles.

If you are looking for more functionality like initial orbit determination and non-SGP4 propagators, then ootk may be what you are looking for. All the functions of ootk-core are already in ootk, so there is no need to import both. The one big difference is the license. ootk-core is licensed under MIT and ootk is licensed under AGPL. The basic difference is MIT means you can do whatever you want, but don't blame me and AGPL means you can do whatever you want, but you have to let everyone see your source code if you are incorporating this library...and don't blame me. I see it as a great way to help students, hobbyists, and educators while deterring companies from getting rich off my hard work - but if you can make money while giving back your source code then I think everyone wins.

I am about 95% done with ootk-core. Working on improving test coverage and more in-depth documentation, but you can see the most current release candidate here. As soon as I am finished with that, then ootk will be next. Since this is all of the math that powers KeepTrack, you will be able to do anything that I am doing using threejs or cesium.

To support that, I have been working with @ajamas to revive StuffInSpace. This is the library that I started with 8 years ago to build KeepTrack. The original is extremely outdated and the website is no longer owned by the original creator. @ajamas had the idea to update it and port it into threejs, which provides a ton of benefits to those who don't want to dig into raw WebGl code and a huge community of additional plugins.