Supernova is an orbit propagator coded in C for the purpose of accelerating calculations, both on the ground and aboard the FINCH spacecraft.

Supernova propagates orbits using Cowell's method, integrating Newton's laws.

Supernova uses an adaptive 10th order method with an truncation error estimate of eigth order called RK810. It outperforms an equivalent DOP853 based Python solver by a factor of 100x in terms of runtime when tested using only J2 perturbations.

Supernova defines functions for gravitational attraction of the Earth, with advanced perturbation effects coming soon. Currently, only J2 and atmospheric drag are supported.

Aero characteristics are currently hard-coded for FINCH (drag coefficient = 2.2, Area to mass ratio = 0.01 m^2 / kg)

Accepts input for initial orbit state vector and serves as a wrapper for the RK810 solver.

Supernova can be compiled as a .so shared library, and imported into Python as ctypes for easy interfacing between the programs.

A simple Python script is provided to visualize the results of the integration.

Run the makefile. make program for C, and make python for the Python interface. Enjoy!