Real-Time Satellite Tracking and Intelligence Dashboard

Hey HN,

We built Heimdall (heimdallspace.com) because the existing tools for space situational awareness are genuinely painful to use: clunky interfaces, fragmented data sources, slow rendering. The ones that aren't are locked behind enterprise solutions. We thought the foundation of this should be open and accessible.

The goal is a satellite observability platform: one place that gives operators complete, real-time insight into their assets and the orbital environment around them. Today's release is the foundation—aggregating and rendering the full public space catalog (30,000+ objects) in real time.

How it works technically:

- SGP4 propagation running across web workers, computing positions every few frames

- Go backend ingesting TLEs hourly from Space-Track.org with daily metadata enrichment from GCAT

- React + Three.js frontend rendering 30,000+ objects as GPU point sprites with custom GLSL shaders

- 8K Earth textures with accurate solar-positioned day/night cycle

- Self-hosted on a VPS

Any feedback is appreciated. We'd also love technical feedback on the propagation approach, data pipeline, or anything that looks wrong or could be done better. We're looking for professionals in the space industry who might be able to provide real-world insight into what they want from the platform. We're early and building in the open, so this is a real ask.