Locate the International Space Station using Python

Live Location of ISS on Map

International space station (ISS) is a large spacecraft that is built by several countries of the world. It has been functional since 1998 and in 2000, the first crew arrived to ISS. It orbits around the earth for every 90 minutes at the speed of 17,500 mph and at the altitude of 250 miles above earth. In this blog, let us locate the position of ISS on the world map.

International Space Station, pic courtesy: NASA

Gather the data

The data from the Open Notify server is accessed via API into our work environment. The data is in the form of JSON with precise latitude and longitude of the ISS at any given time. The data is then used to locate the ISS in the OpenStreetMap by embedding the dynamic locations (latitude and longitude) in the map link

Data source: http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json
Presentation: https://www.openstreetmap.org

Python code

Code can be found in my Git repository: link

Python code for Locating ISS

Locate the ISS

The output of the above code will open a new browser window and shows the location of ISS marked on the OpenStreetMap

Example:

Location of ISS at 05:12 AM IST on 07–Sep-2021

Inspiration: @buildwithpython | Dedicating to all of us under the same ISS!