ISS Mission Control

Real-time International Space Station tracker with live telemetry, orbital pass predictions, and NASA video feeds on an immersive full-screen map.

About

After stargazing with my kids one night, I wanted a single screen that showed where the ISS was and a live view from its cameras — without juggling a satellite tracking app and YouTube. This started as a vanilla JS prototype and evolved into a production app with its own backend computing real orbital mechanics.

Live at iss.jimchristian.net

Features

• Real-time ISS position via WebSocket, updated every 2 seconds
• Own orbital data — ISS position computed from TLE data using satellite.js SGP4 propagation (no third-party position API dependency)
• Real pass predictions — actual orbital mechanics, not approximations. Enter your location and see when the ISS will be visible overhead
• Immersive full-screen map — glassmorphic floating panels over a dark CartoDB map. No traditional app chrome
• Live NASA stream — picture-in-picture window, draggable and collapsible
• Crew information — current ISS crew roster
• Dark and light themes
• Responsive — desktop, tablet, and mobile layouts
• Keyboard shortcuts — F (follow), C (crew), P (passes), / (search), Esc (close)

Architecture

Browser (Svelte SPA)
    |
    |-- WebSocket (direct) --> VPS Backend (Node.js, Docker)
    |                            |-- TLE fetch (CelesTrak, every 6h)
    |-- REST ----------------->  |-- ISS position (satellite.js SGP4)
                                 |-- Pass predictions
                                 |-- Crew data (open-notify)

• Frontend: Svelte 5 + Vite, Leaflet.js map, deployed to VPS via nginx
• Backend: Node.js + Fastify + satellite.js, Dockerized on IONOS VPS
• Edge cache: Cloudflare Worker with route-specific TTLs (optional layer)

Development

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev       # http://localhost:5173
npm run build     # Production build to dist/

Backend

cd backend
npm install
npm run dev       # http://localhost:3848
npm test          # 27 tests

Environment

Create frontend/.env:

VITE_API_URL=https://iss.jimchristian.net/api
VITE_WS_URL=wss://iss.jimchristian.net/ws

For local development, point at a local backend:

VITE_API_URL=http://localhost:3848
VITE_WS_URL=ws://localhost:3848/ws

Deployment

./deploy.sh           # Build + deploy frontend to VPS
./deploy-backend.sh   # Deploy backend Docker container to VPS

Tech Stack

License

MIT - see LICENSE

Acknowledgements

• CelesTrak for TLE orbital data
• satellite.js for SGP4 propagation
• NASA for the live ISS video feeds
• OpenStreetMap and CARTO for map tiles
• Leaflet.js for the mapping library