Great to see this. One of the very first examples of client-site Java put up years ago by JPL (or NASA?) was essentially this, but it went down a few years ago.
So simple, yet very powerful tool to grok intuitively quite a few things: geostationary orbits - and to see at a glance why latency is going to be a problem; the issue of coverage for satellite phones etc.
Edit: Looks like the NASA one still exists (http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html/) but it's a pain to get it to run because of Java security, and seems to be broken. Won't run in Chrome, broken display in IE and Firefox.
Yes! I always had this open on my Dad's computer quite some time ago. I always wanted to catch a glimpse of a satellite, or especially the ISS, as it traveled over-head.
So simple, yet very powerful tool to grok intuitively quite a few things: geostationary orbits - and to see at a glance why latency is going to be a problem; the issue of coverage for satellite phones etc.
Edit: Looks like the NASA one still exists (http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/3d/JTrack3D.html/) but it's a pain to get it to run because of Java security, and seems to be broken. Won't run in Chrome, broken display in IE and Firefox.