What is space GIS?
Space GIS — short for space-domain geographic information systems — is the discipline of capturing, analyzing, and serving geocoded data about objects in or near orbit, plus the ground-based infrastructure (launch pads, downrange exclusion zones, ground stations) that supports them. Unlike conventional GIS, space GIS routinely handles moving objects, multi-frame radiometric satellite imagery, and tightly fused multi-source data layers.
How it differs from conventional GIS
Conventional GIS handles static features (buildings, roads, parcels) on a fixed surface. Space GIS handles moving objects — satellites in 90-minute orbits, rockets ascending through the atmosphere, ground tracks sweeping across continents in minutes. The geometry primitives, query patterns, and refresh rates are different.
Space GIS also routinely fuses datasets that conventional GIS rarely touches together: satellite catalog (CelesTrak TLEs), thermal infrared satellite imagery (NOAA GOES, JMA Himawari), aircraft transponder data (ADS-B), maritime vessel tracking (AIS), and pre-launch airspace advisories (FAA NOTAMs).
Primary data sources
- Geostationary thermal IR imagery — NOAA GOES-18 (West, 137.2W) and GOES-19 (East, 75.2W), plus JMA Himawari-9 (140.7E). Free, public, near-real-time. The basis of LaunchDetect's plume detection (see Week 14).
- Polar-orbiting Earth-observation — Landsat 9 (30 m, 16-day revisit), Sentinel-2 (10 m, 5-day revisit). Free via AWS Open Data and Microsoft Planetary Computer.
- Satellite catalog — Space-Track.org (account required) and CelesTrak (no account) publish daily-updated TLEs for every tracked object in orbit (~30,000 entries as of 2026).
- Spaceport registry — 17 active orbital spaceports curated with pad-level coordinates and operator metadata (LaunchDetect's atlas).
- SAR imagery — Sentinel-1 (C-band, free), commercial X-band providers (Capella, ICEYE). Sees through clouds.
Common space-GIS questions
The space-GIS practitioner is regularly asked questions like:
- Is this thermal hotspot a rocket plume or a wildfire?
- Which countries does this satellite overfly in the next 24 hours?
- What is the maritime exclusion zone for tomorrow's Falcon 9 launch?
- Which spaceport can serve a sun-synchronous orbit at this altitude?
- Did this Sentinel-1 interferogram show ground deformation around the launch facility?
Each of these is a spatial query at heart. Each requires geocoded data, the right coordinate system, and the right analytical tools.
The tools
Industry-standard tools for space GIS:
- PostGIS — spatial backend, the foundation of every serious geospatial application.
- CesiumJS — 3D globe in the browser, the only realistic choice for visualizing orbital geometry to humans.
- QGIS — desktop GIS for analysis, styling, and map production.
- Python ecosystem — SGP4 propagation via
skyfield, raster IO viarasterio, satellite imagery viasatpy, gridded arrays viaxarray, geometries viashapelyandgeopandas. - AWS native — S3 for raw imagery, Lambda for event-driven processing, DynamoDB for state, EventBridge for orchestration. The serverless geospatial stack that LaunchDetect uses in production.
Related weeks in the course
- Week 1: What is GIS? Coordinate systems and datums
- Week 7: Orbital mechanics primer: TLEs and Keplerian elements
- Week 13: GOES-R ABI: full-disk, CONUS, mesoscale
- Week 14: Thermal IR Band 7: brightness temperature and hotspots
- Week 18: 3D globes: CesiumJS and orbital visualization
- Week 21: Multi-sensor fusion: GOES-East, GOES-West, Himawari-9