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Mark Jessop edited this page Dec 28, 2022 · 7 revisions

SondeHub Predictor - Tawhiri / Leaflet Version

Last Updated: 2022-09-25

Cambridge University Spaceflight landing predictor - a web-based tool for predicting the flight path and landing location of latex meteorological sounding balloons.

This fork of the original predictor contains a continuation of the original CUSF predictor, which utilises the Tawhiri API, and also uses Leaflet for mapping instead of Google Maps.

A live version of the predictor intended for non-commercial use is available at http://predict.sondehub.org/ , hosted by the Sondehub project.

If hosting this yourself, please note that it uses the SondeHub-hosted instance of Tawhiri. Please contact us to discuss fair usage of this API.

License

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version. This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Differences from the HabHub predictor

The SondeHub predictor looks and operates in much the same way as the HabHub predictor that you might be familiar with. The main difference are:

  • There is no more prediction 'caching', so no more predict.habhub.org/?uuid=etc URLs. Predictions are all run on-demand.
  • When a prediction is run, the page URL is updated to include the prediction parameters. This URL can be copied and shared, though note that the prediction will be re-run whenever the page is loaded.
  • Hourly prediction functionality has been merged into the main predictor site. Hourly predictions are now run on-demand.

Using the Hourly/Daily Prediction Functionality

Users familiar with the original Habhub predictor may be wondering where the hourly prediction functionality has gone! Instead of requiring administrators to set up each and every hourly prediction site, we decided to build this functionality into the predictor web interface, and allow these predictions to be run on-demand.

To setup an hourly prediction:

  • Configure the prediction parameters, including launch site, ascent/descent rates, burst altitude, and the launch time of the first prediction to be run.
  • Select the desired time step from the 'Prediction Type' drop-down box, located just above the 'Run Prediction' button. Predictions can be run with a 1/3/6/12 hourly time step, and a daily time step.
  • Run the prediction! This may take some time to display, as the predictions are all run on-demand. Be patient and watch the pretty dots be drawn on the map!
  • The URL can be copied to share the prediction settings. The launch_datetime field in the URL can be replaced with now, to automatically populate the start time with the current time when the page is loaded. e.g. launch_datetime=now

As an example, the following URL for an hourly prediction from the Auburn launch site:

https://predict.sondehub.org/?launch_datetime=2022-12-28T10%3A27%3A00Z&launch_latitude=-34.0297&launch_longitude=138.6917&launch_altitude=0&ascent_rate=5&profile=standard_profile&prediction_type=1_hour&burst_altitude=30000&descent_rate=5

... can be transformed into an 'on-demand' hourly prediction URL by replacing the launch_datetime field, resulting in:

https://predict.sondehub.org/?launch_datetime=now&launch_latitude=-34.0297&launch_longitude=138.6917&launch_altitude=0&ascent_rate=5&profile=standard_profile&prediction_type=1_hour&burst_altitude=30000&descent_rate=5

This can then be saved as a bookmark for future use.

Note - for predictions for Meteorological Radiosonde launch sites, we recommend using the launch site prediction functionality already available on the SondeHub Tracker.

Credits & Acknowledgments

Credit as detailed in individual files, but notably:

  • Rich Wareham - The new predictor and the hourly predictor system
  • Fergus Noble, Ed Moore and many others
  • Adam Grieg
  • Jon Sowman

Work to switch the predictor across to Tawhiri, and addition of other features by:

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