ORBITAL is a fictional space-surveillance agency. Its design thesis: for a tracking service, the truth is the simulation — so the catalogue rows are generated from the live orbital mechanics behind them, not the other way around.
Mission-control aesthetics usually fake their data. Here, forty satellites run on inclined circular orbits with Kepler-consistent speeds (period ∝ a3/2); the six featured rows print inclination and period read out of that simulation. Hovering a row lights the actual orbit it describes — the table and the sky are one object.
Radar-room logic: amber for tracks, green for ground stations, red strictly for objects that misbehave.
Krona One — display. Wide, deliberate, slightly bureaucratic; a font for stencilled agency doors.
Chivo Mono — the catalogue voice. Inter Tight carries the prose.
| Element | How it works |
|---|---|
| Graticule Earth | A dark sphere wearing latitude rings and rotated meridian loops as THREE.Line geometry — a chart of a planet rather than a photo of one. Green markers sit at five real ground-station coordinates via spherical positioning. |
| Orbit propagation | Each satellite is {a, inclination, RAAN, phase, speed}; position comes from rotating a circular orbit by inclination then RAAN. Speeds follow √(μ/a³), so low birds visibly outrun high ones. |
| Row ↔ orbit link | Catalogue rows are built from the same objects that render — hover swaps the orbit line to full opacity and scales the satellite 2.2×. Inclination and period cells are computed, not written. |
| Debris counter | A once-only ScrollTrigger counts to 36,500 — the approximate real census of tracked objects over 10 cm. |
| Accessibility | Reduced motion freezes epoch time and Earth rotation (the hover link still works, as it's state). HUD is decorative and hidden from readers; all catalogue data is real text. |
| You do | The page does |
|---|---|
| Hover a catalogue row | Its orbit ignites in amber on the board and the object swells |
| Scroll | The camera stands off; the board keeps running behind the reading |
| Reach the debris section | The census counts up once, and stops at the uncomfortable number |