Satscape

A satellite tracking program for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. You can use it to find out the position of any of the 8000+ satellites and orbital debris in orbit around the earth right now, anything from the International space station to a misplaced spanner can be tracked right on your screen with no special equipment. Your very own NORAD command and control on your computer desktop. Sorry, it doesn’t currently track Santa. So, if you’re a star-gazer and want to see (with the naked eye) the international space station fly over your house, or you’re a radio amateur who wants to know when you can have a QSO with your buddy thousands of miles away. This is the program you need, easy to use, no need to be a rocket-scientist, it will do all the hard maths for you, and looks pretty.

• Highly accurate SGP4 equations, Satellites pass predictions to the nearest second
• Ideal for Radio amateurs, astronomers, schools and educational use.
• 2D view shows a map of the world with the all the satellite positions
• 3D view shows a realistic representation of the satellite positions.
• Pass predictions can be calculated, displayed and printed in a few seconds
• The tracking data is automatically updated via the internet to keep it accurate.
• Speech announcements are made at user-specified periods to alert you when a satellite is about to pass over.

Download – updated 14th July 2012 (version 12.07.14)

Download and Install Java 6 – Download (Satscape may not work with Java 7)

Windows (64-bit) – Download

Windows (32-bit) – Download

Apple Mac OS – Download

Installation notes

Windows: Make a folder anywhere on your hard drive and unzip the file into it, double click Satscape.jar to run (or make a shortcut to the jar file)
Mac OS Leopard and older: Java 1.5 is installed by default, go to java preferences and select 1.6 instead.
Linux/Ubuntu: Instructions coming soon.

You can copy the Satscape.jar file to anywhere on your hard drive and even create a short-cut to it if you want. Think of it as a regular EXE file on windows

Satscape will still update the keplerian elements automatically, but won’t update the program itself, so to hear about new updates, please subscribe to the RSS feed : http://feeds.feedburner.com/SatscapeNews. It does include other news too.

Updates

As new satellites are launched, they will appear automatically in the “new” group. Updates to the keplerian elements will happen automatically every 7 days, so long as an internet connection is available.

Further development of the Satscape program may not happen as much as it used to, as my hobbies have changed over the years, having said that if something vital changes causing Satscape to no longer function, I will drop everything I’m doing to fix it.

Satscape Demonstration Videos

Adding More Satellites Tutorial

‘Classic’ Satscape program, circa 1994

The original Satscape program written way back in the 20th century is still available. It will only run on Windows, and may be a bit buggy. I recommend you use the Java version above, as this classic version is no longer developed or supported, and is simply here for historical completeness.

Download classic Satscape for Windows

Download classic Manual for Satscape (English)

Download classic Manual for Satscape (Dutch)

Download classic Manual for Satscape (Espanol) – Translation by Raúl Fantini LU5DNC

Download classic PATCH to make Satscape into Spanish version (all menus and text in Spanish)

Translation was by Raúl Fantini LU5DNC, please visit his web site for more information about the spanish version.

Por favor, visite su sitio web para más información.

This classic version of Satscape outputs rotor and radio frequency information via Windows DDE to make use of it you can run WispDDE at the same time and this will control your antenna rotor