[amsat-bb] Re: NASA predix program

[Rich Dailey (gmail)]

>What sets the NASA maps apart is that they also usually show the coverage
>area of the three primary TDRS relay satellites, and marks on the future
>ground tracks to indicate orbital sunrise and sunsets. As the shuttle
>(or ISS) moves about the orbit, those coverage circles help visualize the
>"TDRSS handovers" where communications will drop out for a minute or a few.
>You may also notice on the ISS map view, the range circles about the Russian
>ground stations. During de-orbit and re-entry the background goes black and
>you'll see blue range circles about the various US radar tracking sites.
>During Joint-Ops with both Shuttle and ISS, they show Lat/Lon/Alt stats
>in the upper corners of the display. Lots of things they can turn on/off.

My recollection (circa 1997 or so) was that the old DOS based STS-Orbitsplus
did all this - TDRSS coverage, coverage circles for tracking/ground stations,  even the
South Atlantic Anomaly zone.

But I'm not sure how friendly our newer OS's are toward this intensely graphical
DOS app.  I ran it on a 100mhz 486 with dos5.  Also ran Instantrack, and I know it runs fine
in a command window.  But STSorbits was a little more picky with graphics, as I remember.

Rich, N8UX