Projects / Interactive Demo
Orbits
A geocentric satellite visualizer with live TLE propagation.
What it does
Orbits is a 3D, browser-based satellite visualizer that places you in low Earth orbit's neighborhood. Pick a target from a built-in catalog of real spacecraft — the International Space Station, Hubble, a Starlink shell satellite — or paste in any current Two-Line Element set and watch the orbit propagate around Earth in real time.
What you can do
Catalog of real spacecraft
Pre-loaded TLEs for the ISS, Hubble Space Telescope, and a representative Starlink satellite, so you can start exploring without typing anything in.
Custom TLE input
Paste any Two-Line Element set from CelesTrak or Space-Track and Orbits will propagate it — useful for tracking a specific satellite or comparing constellations.
Live orbital telemetry
Real-time readouts of altitude, orbital period, perigee and apogee, inclination, and eccentricity update as the satellite moves along its track.
Time scrubbing
Speed up, slow down, reverse, or jump to "now" on the timeline at the bottom of the screen — watch a full orbit complete in seconds, or freeze a moment in time.
Camera controls
Recenter on Earth, lock onto the target satellite, or free-orbit the view with mouse and touch gestures.
Mission-console aesthetic
A dark, monospace-typed UI inspired by ground-control terminals — less app, more cockpit.
Why it exists
Orbits started as an experiment in seeing whether a clean, focused 3D simulator could be built end-to-end with Codex as a coding partner. The answer was yes — and the result is a small, fun tool that makes orbital mechanics feel tangible. It's the kind of thing that's surprisingly hard to find on the web: a no-signup, no-install satellite tracker you can hand to a curious kid or use to settle a "where is the ISS right now" argument.
Technology
Built with vanilla JavaScript and Three.js for WebGL rendering, with custom SGP4-style orbital propagation from TLE data. No backend — everything runs in the browser.