lloydwood

From Razvoj uporabniškega vmesnika za vizualizacijo kinematike satelita : magistrsko delo, Tilen Teršek, University of Maribor, Slovenia, 2025.

translated from Slovenian:

3 ANALYSIS OF EXISTING SOLUTIONS

3.1 SaVi

SaVi (Satellite Constellation Visualization) is a tool that enables the visualization of satellite constellations and their coverage of the Earth. The main functionality of SaVi is to simulate the movement of satellites along certain orbits and display the areas that satellites can cover in real time. The tool is particularly useful for the analysis and optimization of telecommunications satellite networks, where it is important that the satellites are positioned correctly to ensure the greatest possible coverage with the least number of satellites.

It allows testing different satellite configurations and analyzing how changes in orbits affect coverage. In addition, it allows interactive management of satellite system parameters, such as altitude, speed and angle of satellite orbits, which is useful for planning future satellite networks.

The tool is open source and was developed as part of projects related to the modeling of satellite networks. It runs only on Unix systems and is designed to be accessible to researchers and engineers working in the field of space technology and telecommunications. While SaVi has many advantages for simulating satellite constellations, it also faces some shortcomings, especially in the area of user experience. The process of building the application itself can be complex, as SaVi is open source software that requires more technical knowledge for proper configuration and installation. Although SaVi is very powerful for specific satellite simulations, it may not be the best solution for general tasks or for less technically skilled users.

..then a copy of the screenshot on the SaVi website, showing SaVi's user interface.

Maribor launched a nanosatellite to Medium Earth Orbit in 2022. Details.