Build a GeoJSON FeatureCollection of all currently-active orbital launch pads worldwide (~20 sites). Each feature has properties: name, country (ISO 3166), operator, status (active/proposed/retired), vehicles flown, first orbital launch year, latest orbital launch year, latitude, longitude. Style the layer in QGIS by operator and country. Compose a publication-quality print layout: title, legend, scale bar, north arrow, attribution. Export the final map as a PDF at A2 size.
Rubric
GeoJSON contains ≥18 active orbital launch pads with all required properties populated
Property values are correct and citable (UN Office for Outer Space Affairs / launch-provider primary sources)
Coordinate precision is at least 4 decimal places for latitude/longitude
QGIS layout includes title, legend, scale bar, north arrow, data-source attribution
PDF is publication-quality (300 dpi, no overlapping labels)
Deliverable
launch-sites.geojson + atlas.pdf, both committed to your personal GitHub fork of academy-labs
Successful completion of this capstone (all rubric items met) mints the Certified Ground Station Operator certificate at /academy/verify/{certId}/.
Submission. Certificate issuance is gated to LaunchDetect Gold ($9.99/month). Submit your capstone deliverable via the form at /academy/verify/ (coming soon — backend in v2). For now, build it, push to GitHub, and link it on your portfolio.