I want to add a feature that allows you to type two object numbers in a menu and then calculate the distance between them at the current time. Should be as simple as determining the scale of the x, y, z coordinate system and then doing some subtraction.
As we get closer to version 1.0 it would be smart to add social media integration so that you can share/tweet details that you are looking at and get more visitors.
Some objects end up inside the earth using the nominal creator. Should save the original TLEs and do a perigee check at the end of the nominal creation to decide whether or not to commit the new TLE.
https://celestrak.com/pub/satcat.txt contains RCS values for all orbital satellites in m^2. This could be utilized to supplement the small, medium, large values.
The current .json database works but is 9MB and is slow to load. It is known to become corrupted on occasion (work-around in place) and is problematic during updates. Would like to convert to a mysql database or something similar.
I would like to be able to see the most current imagery from any satellite that publishes images. This might be best in a menu that lists all the satellites that publish images and then a box that pops up when you select those satellites.
Long term it would be extremely useful to have a mode/page that runs the satcruncher without utilizing opengl or the satellite-orbit-worker. This would be a lot of menus with forms to do things like lookangles, elset comparisons, and collision calculations without taxing a slower computer with opengl.
Currently there are checks to see if an observer's latitude is set to determine whether a sensor is selected or not. This should be replaced with a check to see if an actual variable is flagged. Will reduce potential bugs later.
Launch calendar still relies on a manual update method from October 2016. This needs to be replaced with similar code from the SOCRATES cron job so that it can be updated automatically every 12 hours. Unclear how to handle a smooth transition into 2017, but maybe that part is just manual.
Option to view what the whole SSN or all Russian/PRC tracking stations can view. This could be then leveraged to see what objects are out of view ("Dark Space") and for how long. Modifying satcruncher to do a full network check similar to how the SSN lookangles function works would enable this. It would require passing a binary variable to the web worker when the settings menu is modified.
There is currently code to type in a custom sensor in the url, but it should be moved to a menu that appears when you select "Custom" from the drop downs at the top. This will set the ground for telescope users to calculate lookangles for backyard astronomy.
Using a for loop a TLE with inclination and epoch day set to current day may have its R value and true anomaly adjusted until the current Lat Long matches a picked launch site.
Modifying the free camera view to lock the x, y, z coordinates but allow the view to be rotated should accomplish this. This view will be useful for explaining how optical satellites can view other satellites.
Code needs to be added to the right click function to close the menu or a more elegant check to see if the menu should be disabled after right click has happened and the menu has been closed.
There should eventually be a mode that can be accessed by passing a flag with the GET method when accessing index.htm. In this mode there would be many things that are tripped by a global DEVELOPER_MODE such as console log statements and raw data values.
The current algorith does not account for moving in a north or south direction. Conditional needed that factors in current latitude with last latitude to determine current heading.
There are a series of admin files that are currently not public. These include a few cron jobs that run every two hours to update TLEs. Until they are uploaded the TLE.json file only be updated when a new commit is added.
Long term this might be something worth exploring. Music could be pulled from the open source project to do dynamic symphony music based on satellites in FOV.
Currently the buttons can be pressed before everything is loaded. Can be clunky and would look much better if they were disabled until loading is finished.
It would be nice to be able to display dots (similar to the satellites) in a static position on the earth to visually represent the launch sites. Added bonus if they are selectable to display information about the launch complexes.