Satellite Tracker

Gaze at the stars through your phone. FREE WITH IAP | VITOTECHNOLOGY.COM

Space lovers may be familiar with a little app named Star Walk that received the Apple Design Award back in 2010. Well, the same developer has been hard at work here, so we were excited to see whether the same quality of product was on offer.

If you’re interested in the flight patterns of the numerous satellites in orbit, this app might sate your appetite. There are 15 to select, including the ISS, Hubble, ADEOS II and the Genesis satellites. Pick one and you can rotate a 3D model of the craft, and see where it is around the planet in real-time. The app also tells you what time of day the satellite is likely to pass over you next, if at all, and other information about the craft, such as, in the case of the ISS, who is currently living on it and from which country.

It also includes a star map, which had your humble reviewer swivelling around on her wheelie chair like a child. Hold up your phone and you’ll be able to see the positions of stars and satellites. (Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury are all in a line at the moment. That probably means something bad for all you Virgos out there...)

However, we have to note that most of this app is hidden behind a paywall. If you want to investigate beyond the free version (which offers just the ISS and nothing more), then you will be asked to pay a $1.49 subscription fee every three months to access ‘Satellites Live’, which sounds like what Satellite Tracker was supposed to be — namely, “instant access to tracking satellites live orbiting over the Earth and in the sky”. Without that subscription, this is just the ISS Tracker app, which is more than a little disappointing.

Carmel Sealey