Show HN: Made a little Artemis II tracker

[codingmoh]

Made a little Artemis II tracker for anyone else who is unnecessarily invested in this mission:

https://artemis-ii-tracker.com/

For those of us who apparently need a dedicated place to monitor this mission instead of behaving like well-adjusted people.

[jug]

I recommend https://issinfo.net/artemis over the surge of vibe coded Artemis II trackers. Seen two others so far and they've all had major inaccuracies either regarding trajectory, current distance, or current mission state. One even said the remaining mission time was over 400 days. They all obviously used Claude Code.

[solsane]

Just to be clear one glance and I can tell issinfo.net also used claude code

[ColinWright]

Absolutely ... https://issinfo.net/artemis is the one I use.

Great sense of scale, lovely to see the Moon apparently a long way from the "intercept" point, and it seems "accurate enough".

[spuz]

Thanks - it's very nice to have a progress bar that you can scrub through to see where and when they have been and will be later in the mission.

[codingmoh]

I did not use claude code, but codex, and I am fetching space weather from NOAA SWPc, trajectory, distance, speed, and comms delay are computed from NASA's published Artemis II mission plan parameters, not pulled live from NASA telemetry. Also, the current discrepancy is likely caused by the orbital phase and reference model being used. tracker shows about 192,000 km, while NASA's AROW shows about 80,000 miles, which is roughly 129,000 km. it is off by around 60,000 km. difference can happen because the spacecraft is in a elliptical orbit and different trackers may be using different assumptions, interpolation methods,... or reference points for the trajectory

[halfblood1010]

I really appreciate the idea and effort you put into building an Artemis 2 tracker dashboard. As an aerospace engineering student, I genuinely appreciate the information, the idea, and the effort that went into building this. The trajectory shape itself is technically a bit off, but honestly that doesn’t really matter here because the vast majority of people using the site aren’t aerospace engineers and aren’t looking for a perfectly modelled trajectory. They are looking for an accessible way to understand all the relevant information.

Also, it’s pretty common to see people immediately label projects as “AI slop.” There are quite a few folks who react that way right away, like @jug did here. That reaction is somewhat expected given how quickly AI has taken off and the existential/job-security concerns many computer engineers are dealing with right now, including the massive layoffs at Google 1-2 years ago.

At the end of the day, using AI to help write code is not that different from hiring a freelancer or contractor to implement parts of a project. The core idea, the decision to build it in the first place, the design choices, the testing, and the overall direction still come from humans. Those parts require thought, effort, and ownership, and that deserves appreciation. Either way, I think projects like this are valuable for sparking curiosity and making technical ideas more approachable to common people, which is always a good thing.

[dvt]

To me, what's super interesting about this is the fact that my brain instantly recognized it's AI coded (not sure why, it might be the spacing, the font, the text glow, etc.).

[pmontra]

Developers and their customers mostly gave up design many years ago and used frameworks like Bootstrap because they are good enough, they are cheap to create, they increase speed to deliver with no external designer in the loop, etc. That made many sites look alike. AI designed web sites are the next natural step.

[YCprince]

The First thought that came to mind was It's AI coded. Maybe it's because they follow a similar design pattern. Or maybe we have some supernatural powers

[dematz]

one big AI tell is grid of rounded rects - https://correctarity.com/roundedrects

[noman-land]

Claude always makes sites look this way.

[willio58]

What way? Genuine curiosity

[noman-land]

This sort of bluish dark mode with monospace fonts. Similar accent colors. Not sure where it got this style from.

[altmanaltman]

I think it's because the UI sucks, like really bad. Why is there a CRT-type line in the background going down constantly. The mission timeline has weird colors that make no sense. Some graphs don't even fit their parent element. And so on.

I don't care if its vibe-coded but if you looked at this and thought "yeah that looks good", it only shows how bad you are at UI.

These types of interfaces are cool if you're like 12

[sph]

What's even more interesting is that data is completely off compared to official sources, and the author doesn't even have the decency and self-reflection of checking if their slop is at all accurate before posting it to the HN front page.

Vibe coders, like the eggman himself, are philosophical zombies.

[0x38B]

It says the distance from Earth right now is 154,000km, but the other trackers, including NASA, say 30,000km (numbers rounded). The velocity is different as well, 7km/s vs NASA's 4km/s.

[codingmoh]

I am fetching space weather from NOAA SWPC.

Trajectory, distance, speed, and comms delay are computed from NASA’s published Artemis II mission plan parameters, not pulled live from NASA telemetry.

Also, the current discrepancy is likely caused by the orbital phase and reference model being used. Right now the tracker shows about 192,000 km, while NASA’s AROW shows about 80,000 miles, which is roughly 129,000 km. So yes, that is off by around 60,000 km.

difference can happen because the spacecraft is in a elliptical orbit and different trackers may be using different assumptions, interpolation methods, .. or reference points for the trajectory.

[4ndrewl]

You're absolutely right! Let me go ahead and fix that now...(the sound of credits disappearing...) /s

[p1mrx]

Here's the official one, presumably with correct data: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

[rkagerer]

Sadly I just see an empty progress bar?

[Tepix]

Imperial units. I feel dirty now.

[runako]

What's the joke?

There are two kinds of countries: countries that use metric, and countries who have put a person on the moon.

[Tepix]

Looks like I hit a nerve.

Doesn't NASA use the metric system and only when they interact with the public they provide imperial units?

[runako]

It's a joke.

[uoaei]

Not available on mobile on account of WebGL

[DiabloD3]

Works fine for me on mobile.

[uoaei]

Using Chrome? Firefox and derivatives is a no-go.

[Gagarin1917]

I don’t think the current position of Orion is accurate. It shows them about halfway to the moon, but they’re just leaving Earth orbit right now.

[topspin]

The NASA app is here: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

It has "Distance From Earth" at 44,096 km (converted from miles...,) as opposed to 158,000 km. So yes, far off.

[codingmoh]

Hey, I've responded before, I need to update the visualization: Iam fetching space weather from NOAA SWPC.

Trajectory, distance, speed, and comms delay are computed from NASA's published Artemis II mission plan parameters, not pulled live from NASA telemetry.

Also, the current discrepancy is likely caused by the orbital phase and reference model being used.

Right now the tracker shows about 192,000 km, while NASA's AROW shows about 80,000 miles, which is roughly 129,000 km. So yes, that is off by around 60,000 km. Difference can happen because the spacecraft is in a elliptical orbit and different trackers may be using different assumptions, interpolation methods,... or reference points for the trajectory.

[washbasin]

This is cool! NASA uses Imperial units (well, unless the it's the Mars Climate Orbiter). Can we get a version that follows the units they are using with their public feeds?

[eddyg]

+1 for imperial units

[O1111OOO]

A few more trackers:

https://artemistracker.com/

https://artemislivetracker.com/

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

Aside... so impressed with the UI on the posted version.

[O1111OOO]

Listing another one to the list (source: from the comments). Nice UI too. Data should be compared against the NASA site.

https://issinfo.net/artemis

Five trackers total, including the original posted:

https://artemis-ii-tracker.com/

[rhubarbtree]

Great UI, but inaccurate slop. Couldn’t this have been validated against NASA’s site? Can we get this off the front page if the author can’t even be bothered to do that?

[rozab]

This has always been a peeve of mine, but the lack of scale diagrams in coverage of this is maddening. We know what the Earth and the Moon look like, there is no need to make them 20 times bigger. Surely the point of these diagrams is to show the unbelievable scale of the journey. I'm yet to see one this news cycle, from NASA or anyone else

[zamadatix]

In defense of the given approach:

False scale gives a direct way to see which body is which and where the craft is between them without having to work it out backwards from the rest of the context (while real scale makes both sides just looks like dots on typical sized screens and you need to know/read the rest before you can figure out which is which otherwise).

Combine that with "the scale of the Earth is already too large to comprehend accurately anyways" and defaulting to real scale doesn't really add as much as one might think to the experience anyways.

[ColinWright]

Here's the one I use: https://issinfo.net/artemis

[rozab]

The actual Earth and Moon are still not nearly to scale though!

[groggo]

Someone should make a website or project and post it on HN, and then set up an AI agent takes the top comments and just implements them.

[BugsBunnyCodes]

Super vibe coded, but love how it works. And here's the correct data source for reference btw: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis-ii/arow/

[GrifMD]

This is cool! I do want to ask, did you have AI design the page for you? It looks like a design pattern I've seen spit out by LLMs pretty frequently.

I'm not hear to talk down to you about the site, I love this little thing that gives me just enough info to satisfy my curiosity.

[zamadatix]

I'll be the guy that talks down about Show HN becoming a place to post the thing you just vibe coded then because they didn't even bother to check the accuracy of the result - the numbers it provides about the mission are waaay off from reality right now, it just looks fancy.

I'm not necessarily against people sharing AI generated projects but there almost needs to be an [AI] tag if they do because it's really crashing the excitement of seeing a Show HN post where the assumption is this is something someone has been working hard on and is proud to show it off rather than something they just got out of Claude or whatever after a few prompts.

My take: If you didn't spend at least 24 hours of your own time (i.e. not munging with what the LLM is outputting but dedicated time for your own edits/testing) then it shouldn't qualify as a normal Show HN.

[goran-j]

I like the web site (even if it is vibe coded), it would be cool to add some 3d graphics, maybe using webgl for showing the position of Artemis II

[Polizeiposaune]

The closest they get to the moon is about 8000km/5000 miles above the surface over the far side

The trajectory depicted has them hitting the moon; it should instead show them passing 2+ lunar diameters behind the moon.

[codingmoh]

thank you, I'll consider that

[dap]

Is the MET right? They launched about 29 hours ago but it says 1d18h

[danielszlaski]

Very cool! Nice to put it as a side window for live status (which do not take too much attention compared to YT)

[thiht]

Why is a horizontal line constantly falling down? It’s so distracting, I feel like I can focus on the content

[codingmoh]

Okay, sorry, I meant to make to emulate physical monitor

[jamesbfb]

Bless! Absolutely love this, and an absolutely no disrespect, this is vibe code goodness! These are the kinds of things I have an absolute ball building, usually when I’m sitting on the couch at the end of the day duel screening.

What’s the data source? Assuming NASA being NASA they have a public API for the mission?

[arnav7717]

very cool! How did you get the data?

[desireco42]

Did they not just launch yesterday and they are already half way there? Am I wrong?

[dvh]

They are right now only 44000km not 170000km, it's ai hallucinated slop (unless... NASA app is also ai slop...)

[mattfrommars]

This got vibed coded AF

[Unai]

Pretty cool! This mission has me very excited, but it didn't even occur to me the I could keep track of all this data about it in real time, so thanks for sharing.

BTW, 90% of the comments being about whether this was made with AI or not (and personal opinions on it) is much MUCH worse than it being made with AI. The lack of downvotes for submissions is not an invitation to bring negativity to the comments; if the submission doesn't provide value to you, just move along. Make another post with your opinions on AI and see how many care to read it.

[Smoosh]

Nice, thanks.

[rockdino]

forgot the subject , who made it :)

[lexcamisa54]

is it updating live data via

[gitowiec]

I can't see crap. Fonts too small, everything too dark.

[OOHehir]

Nice job