Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker

Re:Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker by 0x38B on Thursday April 02, 2026 @09:51PM (#47622428)

It says the distance from Earth right now is 154,000km, but the other trackers, including NASA, say 30,000km (numbers rounded). The velocity is different as well, 7km/s vs NASA's 4km/s.

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Re:Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker by 4ndrewl on Thursday April 02, 2026 @11:57PM (#47623041)

You're absolutely right! Let me go ahead and fix that now...(the sound of credits disappearing...) /s

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Re:Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker by codingmoh on Friday April 03, 2026 @08:01AM (#47625702)

I am fetching space weather from NOAA SWPC.

Trajectory, distance, speed, and comms delay are computed from NASA’s published Artemis II mission plan parameters, not pulled live from NASA telemetry.

Also, the current discrepancy is likely caused by the orbital phase and reference model being used. Right now the tracker shows about 192,000 km, while NASA’s AROW shows about 80,000 miles, which is roughly 129,000 km. So yes, that is off by around 60,000 km.

difference can happen because the spacecraft is in a elliptical orbit and different trackers may be using different assumptions, interpolation methods, .. or reference points for the trajectory.

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