The Orbit Simulator software is a highly motivating and interactive tool designed to help students visualize and grasp these important concepts.

This software provides 2D and 3D animated views of the Earth and orbiting satellites as well as a plane view of one orbit. Students can display typical orbits of existing satellites, such as geosynchronous, geostationary, quasi-geostationary, quasi-zenith, polar, LEO, MEO and highly elliptical (e.g. Molniya) orbits and create their own satellites by entering the appropriate orbital elements. They can also modify the orbital elements of any satellite and observe the result. The animation can be viewed in real time, accelerated or stopped.

The software demonstrates various aspects of satellite coverage such as visibility, footprints, elevation contours, time of visibility, revisit time, swath, satellite constellations, global and spot satellite antenna beams, and instantaneous and long-term coverage. It also helps students understand factors critical to the alignment of Earth station antennas to geostationary satellites such as satellite longitude, antenna look angles and polarization angle (skew).

The Orbit Simulator comes with a Student Manual and an Instructor Guide with exercises on satellite orbits and coverage.