Mankato
Composite Squadron
Satellite Tool Kit
Satellite Tool Kit, or STK, is a software package created by Analytical Graphics, Inc designed to track and analyze assets anywhere in space, on land, at sea or in the air and determine their dynamic relationships.
It was originally designed for use in the satellite industry in order to give operators information on orbits and corresponding access times for targets on the ground. As the software developed, additional modules were added allowing the user to visualize real-time interactions between air, land, sea and space forces, all in 3-D.
The product was created by Paul Graziani, Scott Reynolds and Jim Poland, former GE Aerospace engineers who left the company to form Analytical Graphics in 1989. More than 40,000 installations of STK are in service worldwide, for customers including the US Department of Defense, NASA, the European Space Agency, Boeing and the Civil Air Patrol.
STK is a powerful and still developing tool for battlespace management, space exploration, missile defense and electronic warfare.
The CAP-STK Aerospace Education Program is designed to educate cadets on the exciting aspects of satellites, satellite orbits, the types and locations of orbits, and satellite missions using Analytical Graphics Incorporated (AGI) state of the art computer application, Satellite ToolKit (STK). For this version of the curriculum, STK 9.0 will be the software utilized in the lesson plans. STK is the same software that space companies use to determine where to place satellites on orbit and to find their satellites once launched.
Satellites and their missions play a critical part in our everyday lives. Everything we do somehow is now connected to satellites in space. We use satellites to communicate, conduct banking transactions, tell the time, navigate our way around a city – or the country for that matter, forecast the weather, protect our national security, create precise maps, examine the oceans, analyze the sun, map the galaxy, the list is practically endless! The more we know about how satellites work and the environment they operate in, the better we will be in determining additional ways we can use these unique assets in the future. STK will excite cadets about space and space operations, and should motivate them want to learn more about this critical part of our infrastructure.
-- Orbital mechanics and the six orbital (Keplerian) elements used to find or place a satellite in orbit.
-- The altitudes satellites operate in and the missions satellites perform at those altitudes.
-- Linking different segments of a space system together and how we communicate with and operate spacecraft from the ground.
-- Creating satellite constellations.
-- Launching rockets into space and have them join up with orbiting spacecraft
-- Determining when a satellite will overfly your location
-- Linking ground, airborne, and space segments together, and creating linkages around the world.