Release History

SatChecker Changelog

This document tracks all notable changes to SatChecker across versions. Entries are organized by release date and version number, with changes categorized as Features, Bugfixes, Changes, Deprecations, Documentation improvements, or Miscellaneous updates. SatChecker follows semantic versioning (MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH).

1.6.0 (2026-01-29)

Features

  • Update FOV endpoint to calculate results asynchronously. The original FOV endpoint will return a task ID and status of the task. The task will be completed in the background and the results will be available via the new task status endpoint.

    Backwards compatibility will be maintained by returning the results immediately if the async parameter is set to false (also usable for FOV requests with shorter durations and smaller FOV radii since those are faster to calculate). (#175)

  • Add endpoint to search satellites by metadata (NORAD ID, name, international designator, launch date, decay date, object type, rcs size, etc.). (#178)

Changes

  • Added API version to remaining tools endpoints and standardized output format. (#178)

1.5.0 (2025-08-28)

Features

  • Added illuminated_only parameter to FOV endpoints to filter satellites based on expected solar illumination status. (#163)

  • Add sat_altitude_km, solar_elevation_deg, and solar_azimuth_deg to ephemeris API responses. (#164)

Changes

  • Updated validation errors to use the main error handler and improve error message text for ra, dec, duration, and fov_radius. (#156)

1.4.0 (2025-07-01)

Miscellaneous

  • Added type checking to linting part of GitHub actions (and associated changes to address type checking errors). (#136)

  • Start collecting ephemeris files from the public files on Space-Track (Starlink only). (#143)

Bugfixes

  • Fix for range_km being null in satellite-passes FOV endpoint. (#151)

Features

  • Add include_tles parameter to the satellite-passes FOV endpoint to show the TLE data used to generate the position data. (#135)

  • Add satellite generation (Starlink only at the moment) to the available satellite metadata. (#137)

  • Add constellation parameter to the satellite-passes FOV endpoint satellites-above-horizon to filter the results to a specific constellation. Valid options are currently starlink, oneweb, kuiper, ast and planet. (#149)

  • Added optional data_source parameter to fov endpoint. Can be Celestrak or Spacetrack - default is “any”. (#152)

Changes

  • Cache most recent TLE set for use with FOV queries from the current time either into the future or up to 3 hours into the past. If cache is inaccessible for any reason, it defaults to a regular database query. (#136)

  • Update API error message text to add more context to the error. (#151)

1.3.0 (2025-03-21)

Miscellaneous

  • Add support for Towncrier change logs (#129)

Improved Documentation

  • Separate documentation for TLE and satellite related endpoints for the Tools API (#127)

Features

  • Add endpoints to the tools API to get the TLE nearest to a given date, get TLEs immediately before and after a given date, and get any specified number of TLEs before or after a given date (#127)

  • Add caching for FOV queries with a 1 hour expiration. Caching is based on all FOV query parameters so only identical queries are cached. (#129)

1.2.0 (2025-03-06)

Features

  • Added endpoint to get all active satellites

  • Support astropy site names as alternatives to lat/lon/elevation in ephemeris and FOV endpoints

  • Initial field of view service to check satellite passes through a given field of view, and which satellites are currently above the horizon.

  • Add txt as a result format option for getting all TLEs from a given epoch

1.1.0 (2024-10-31)

Bugfixes

  • Fix for rogue satellites with no apparent current sat number

Features

  • Add endpoint to get all TLEs for a given date

  • Add endpoint to get satellite metadata; update tests and documentation

  • Add tools endpoint to get satellite metadata

  • Add TLE epoch date to ephemeris data response

  • Add option to zip TLE results

Changes

  • Change ‘and’ condition to filter satellite search for metadata properly

  • Get satellite info by name: use date_added instead of has_current_sat_number

  • Change intl_designator to international_designator

v1.0.4 (2024-10-01)

Features

  • Add endpoint to get all TLEs for active objects at the current (or specified) epoch.

v1.0.3 (2024-09-15)

Features

  • Add endpoint to get satellite data by name or NORAD ID

v1.0.2 (2024-09-06)

Features

  • Add international designator/COSPAR ID to ephemeris data responses

v1.0.1 (2025-08-27)

Bugfixes

  • Fix path to conf.py

  • Fix 403 error causing health check to fail

v1.0.0 (2024-07-01)

Features

  • Add versioning to API URL (v1 currently); version is optional and not including it will return the most recent version (api-versioning)

  • Add is_current_version to name/id check endpoints to show which is the current version of the satellite information (current-version-flag)

Changes

  • Change to using Celery for satellite propagation; add flask-migrate (celery-migration)

  • Change to use closest TLE from any source if source is not specified (closest-tle)

  • Change JSON response format (json-response-format)

  • Refactor to consolidate shared functionality and support versioning (refactor-versioning)

v0.4.0-beta (2024-05-08)

Features

  • Add new endpoint to get all available TLE data for a given satellite over a given date range (historical-tle)

  • Add new endpoints for satellite name/id lookup: get-names-from-norad-id and get-norad-ids-from-name (name-id-lookup)

v0.3.1-beta (2024-05-01)

Miscellaneous

  • Extend timeout to retrieve Space-Track TLEs

Improved Documentation

  • Update documentation and example links

Features

  • Add observer and satellite GCRS positions to the response

Changes

  • Change response when no position data is found to return a relevant message

v0.3.0-beta (2024-04-01)

Features

  • Add spacetrack as a new data source, chose TLE closest to given date

Miscellaneous

  • Pass in datetime instead of astropy.Time

v0.2.1-beta (2025-03-20)

Deprecations and Removals

  • Temporarily remove service stability check

v0.2.0-beta (2024-01-13)

Features

  • Add minimum and maximum altitudes as optional parameters

  • Add min/max altitude parameters, add database fields, update documentation and health check

Miscellaneous

  • Minor updates - default jd time step, add database fields, update documentation

beta (2023-11-08)

Features

  • Use astropy Time and EarthLocation

  • Add endpoint to retrieve ephemeris by satellite catalog number

  • Add catalog number endpoints and integration tests

  • Add endpoint to get ephemeris from a TLE

  • Add error handling and rate limiting

  • Add illuminated flag

  • TLE endpoint, switch to astropy objects, deployment related clean up

Bugfixes

  • Fix for attribute not found when retrieving TLE

Improved Documentation

  • Clean up and documentation

  • Merge readme updates and minor code formatting fixes