Teach and learn with a live satellite catalog
Lessons, datasets, and research methods built on OrbitalWiki's real, source-backed catalog. Pick a path below, search the lessons, or start with a student project.
Start with the learner
Choose the closest teaching context. You can refine the lesson list afterwards.
Secondary school
Ages 11–18. Short, self-contained activities using real satellite records.
Undergraduate aerospace
Orbit regimes, catalogs, and the identifiers that tie datasets together.
Data science
Joining, cleaning, and reasoning about a real, imperfect public catalog.
Computer science
Working with a public REST API, keys, and structured provenance data.
Amateur radio
Finding spacecraft, receiving responsibly, and planning passes from current orbital elements.
Research methods
Provenance, conflicting sources, and citing an evolving dataset honestly.
Choose a lesson
Filter by learner group, then narrow by topic, level, or time. Every card opens the full lesson.
7 lessons
- Lower and middle secondary (ages 11–15) · 40 min
Why Satellites Are Visible at Dusk
A satellite has no lights of its own. You see it only when it is still in sunlight and you are already in darkness, which is why the good window is narrow and why a pass can end abruptly.
observingilluminationearth-shadowpassestwilight - Upper secondary and early undergraduate (ages 15+) · 50 min
Why Low Orbits Decay
Atmospheric drag never stops acting in low Earth orbit. Students read the drag term and perigee from real records, rank objects by how fast they will come down, and learn why the answer is a band rather than a date.
dragdecayreentrybstarspace-weatherperigee - Upper secondary and early undergraduate (ages 14+) · 45 min
Read a Ground Track
A ground track is the orbit drawn on a turning Earth. Compute how far west the next pass lands using nothing but the orbital period, and find out why the inclination sets how far north the track reaches.
ground-trackinclinationperiodsidereal-daycoverage - Beginner amateur radio and upper secondary physics · 50 min
Doppler Shift on a Satellite Pass
A satellite moving at kilometres per second drags its own signal in frequency. Work out the size of the shift yourself, plan a receive-only session around it, and never transmit as part of this activity.
doppleramateur-radiopassesreceivingfrequencysafety - Senior secondary and undergraduate research methods · 50 min
How Many Satellites Are There?
Every published satellite count answers a slightly different question. Rather than looking up "the" number, students collect several, work out which question each one answers, and produce a claim that survives being checked.
definitionscountingprovenancecitationdynamic-datamedia-literacy - Upper primary and lower secondary (ages 10–13) · 35 min
Orbit Basics for Young Observers
Use real catalog records to distinguish a low Earth orbit from a geostationary orbit, without treating every object in the catalog as a functioning satellite.
orbitsleogeostationarycatalog-literacy - Secondary school and early undergraduate (ages 14+) · 45 min
Understanding NORAD and COSPAR Identifiers
Every tracked object carries two names: a NORAD catalog number and a COSPAR International Designator. This lesson teaches students to read both, and to see why one encodes a launch and the other does not.
identifierscatalogsnoradcosparmetadata
Educator resources
Notebooks
Jupyter notebooks that run against the live OrbitalWiki API. Every request in them is real and was executed before publication. Download one, open it in Jupyter, run it top to bottom.
All notebooksDataset downloads
Use versioned dataset releases for reproducible coursework.
Browse datasetsCitation guide
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Request a languageInstructor packs
The Satellite Science Unit Pack collects all 17 lessons into one printable document, with every worksheet, answer key and figure included, under a licence that covers a single classroom or family. Every lesson stays free to read and download on its own.
Student project ideas
Identifier detective
Pick ten satellites, record both identifiers from their record pages, and explain what each identifier does and does not tell you. Builds directly on the identifiers lesson.
Orbit-regime census
Use the catalog's orbit-class data to count how many active objects sit in LEO, MEO, GEO and HEO, and write up what the distribution implies about how space is used today.
Provenance audit
Find a satellite whose record shows conflicting or unverified fields, then trace each claim to its source and confidence. A concrete introduction to data provenance.