Auto scheduling

After a few days of testing my auto-scheduler tool appears to be stable.

When given a ground station ID, it obtains the antenna properties of that ground station (mostly frequency ranges) from the SatNOGS database. Next, it gets the properties of all active transmitters in the database, and downloads TLEs using @kerel’s TLE downloader. These TLEs are cached locally, and only updated if the last download was more than 24h ago. Passes for these satellites are computed for a given time frame, and these passes are given a priority based on the transmitter success rate as well as the maximum pass elevation. This list is then sorted on priority, and each successive pass that does not overlap with previously scheduled passes is scheduled on the network.

On my stations (#39 and #40) I run my auto scheduler hourly from a cronjob, scheduling passes for the coming hour. This way, the auto scheduler keeps the stations busy, while allowing other users to schedule passes further in the future.

6 Likes