Usage

import spacetrack.operators as op
from spacetrack import SpaceTrackClient

st = SpaceTrackClient(identity='user@example.com', password='password')

Request classes are presented as methods on the SpaceTrackClient object. For example, st.tle_publish(). Each request class is part of a request controller. Since most request classes are only part of one request controller, spacetrack looks up the controller for you. It can be specified explicitly in several ways. All the following are equivalent:

st.tle_publish()
st.tle_publish(controller='basicspacedata')
st.basicspacedata.tle_publish()
st.generic_request('tle_publish')
st.generic_request('tle_publish', controller='basicspacedata')

Request predicates are passed as keyword arguments. Valid arguments can be checked using the get_predicates() method. The following are equivalent:

st.tle_publish.get_predicates()
st.tle_publish.get_predicates(controller='basicspacedata')
st.basicspacedata.tle_publish.get_predicates()
st.basicspacedata.get_predicates('tle_publish')
st.get_predicates('tle_publish')
st.get_predicates('tle_publish', controller='basicspacedata')

Returned object:

[Predicate(name='publish_epoch', type_='datetime', nullable=False),
 Predicate(name='tle_line1', type_='str', nullable=False),
 Predicate(name='tle_line2', type_='str', nullable=False)]

Internally, the client uses this mechanism to verify the keyword arguments. Types are not currently checked.

Streaming Downloads

It is possible to stream responses by passing iter_content=True (100 KiB chunks) or iter_lines=True to the request class methods.

Example

The same example is shown below synchronously and asynchronously.

import spacetrack.operators as op
from spacetrack import SpaceTrackClient

st = SpaceTrackClient(identity='user@example.com', password='password')

data = st.tle_latest(iter_lines=True, ordinal=1, epoch='>now-30',
                     mean_motion=op.inclusive_range(0.99, 1.01),
                     eccentricity=op.less_than(0.01), format='tle')

with open('tle_latest.txt', 'w') as fp:
    for line in data:
        fp.write(line + '\n')

import asyncio

import spacetrack.operators as op
from spacetrack.aio import AsyncSpaceTrackClient


async def download_latest_tles():
    st = AsyncSpaceTrackClient(identity='user@example.com',
                               password='password')

    async with st:
        data = await st.tle_latest(
            iter_lines=True, ordinal=1, epoch='>now-30',
            mean_motion=op.inclusive_range(0.99, 1.01),
            eccentricity=op.less_than(0.01), format='tle')

        with open('tle_latest.txt', 'w') as fp:
            async for line in data:
                fp.write(line + '\n')

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(download_latest_tles())

File Uploads

To use the upload request class, pass a file keyword argument with the opened file:

from spacetrack import SpaceTrackClient

st = SpaceTrackClient(identity='user@example.com', password='password')

with open('somefile.txt', 'rb') as fp:
    st.upload(file=fp)

Rate Limiter

“Space-track throttles API use in order to maintain consistent performance for all users. To avoid error messages, please limit your query frequency to less than 20 requests per minute.”

The client will ensure that no more than 19 HTTP requests are sent per minute by sleeping if the rate exceeds this. This will be logged to the spacetrack module’s logger. You can register a callback with the SpaceTrackClient or AsyncSpaceTrackClient classes. It will be passed a value to be compared against time.monotonic() to get the remaining time:

import time

from spacetrack import SpaceTrackClient

def mycallback(until):
    duration = int(round(until - time.monotonic()))
    print('Sleeping for {:d} seconds.'.format(duration))

st = SpaceTrackClient(identity='user@example.com', password='password')
st.callback = mycallback

Sample Queries

The Space-Track website lists some sample queries, which are shown here using the Python module.

output = st.boxscore(format='csv')

decay_epoch = op.inclusive_range(date(2012, 7, 2), date(2012, 7, 9))
st.decay(decay_epoch=decay_epoch, orderby=['norad_cat_id', 'precedence'], format='xml')

st.satcat(launch='>now-7', current='Y', orderby='launch desc', format='html')

st.satcat(period=op.inclusive_range(1430, 1450), current='Y',
          decay=None, orderby='norad_cat_id', format='html')

st.satcat(period=op.less_than(128), decay=None, current='Y')

st.tle_latest(ordinal=1, epoch='>now-30',
              mean_motion=op.inclusive_range(0.99, 1.01),
              eccentricity=op.less_than(0.01), format='tle')

st.tle_latest(ordinal=1, epoch='>now-30', mean_motion=op.greater_than(11.25),
              format='3le')

st.tle_latest(favorites='Amateur', ordinal=1, epoch='>now-30', format='3le')

st.tle_latest(
    ordinal=1,
    norad_cat_id=[
        36000,
        op.inclusive_range(36001, 36004),
        op.like(36005),
        op.startswith(3600),
        36010
    ],
    orderby='norad_cat_id',
    format='html')

st.tle(norad_cat_id=25544, orderby='epoch desc', limit=22, format='tle')

st.omm(norad_cat_id=25544, orderby='epoch desc', limit=22, format='xml')

st.tip(norad_cat_id=[60, 38462, 38351], format='html')

st.cdm(constellation='iridium', limit=10, orderby='creation_date desc', format='html')

st.cdm(constellation='iridium', limit=10, orderby='creation_date desc', format='kvn')

st.cdm(
    constellation='intelsat', tca='>now',
    predicates=['message_for', 'tca', 'miss_distance'],
    orderby='miss_distance', format='html', metadata=True)

st.cdm(
    constellation='intelsat', tca='>now',
    predicates=['message_for', 'tca', 'miss_distance'],
    orderby='miss_distance', format='kvn')