SpaceTracker

A Java/Spring Boot site for launches, sky position, astronomy events, and cached spacecraft lookups.

Features

• NASA APOD on the home page
• Upcoming launches from Launch Library 2 with agency/status/year filters
• Sky object positions for a specific location and time
• Spacecraft position and visible pass checks
• Astronomy events page for sun and moon event data
• Postgres-backed API caching and local spacecraft lookup/autocomplete

APIs

• NASA APOD
• The Space Devs Launch Library 2
• AstronomyAPI
• N2YO
• WhereTheISS
• Nominatim (OpenStreetMap geocoding)

Environment

Set these in .env locally or in your deploy env file:

NASA_API_KEY=
ASTRONOMY_API_APP_ID=
ASTRONOMY_API_APP_SECRET=
N2YO_API_KEY=
POSTGRES_JDBC_URL=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/spacetracker
POSTGRES_USERNAME=
POSTGRES_PASSWORD=
PORT=8080

Older deployments using NY2O_API_KEY still work, but N2YO_API_KEY is the correct spelling.

Run locally

1. Make sure Postgres is running.
2. Create the spacetracker database.
3. Fill in the env vars above.
4. Start the app:

mvn spring-boot:run

Open http://localhost:8080.

Cache Notes

• API responses are cached in Postgres table api_response_cache
• Spacecraft names/IDs are stored in spacecraft_catalog
• Cache tables are auto-created on startup when Postgres env vars are present
• Cache counts are available at /api/cache/stats