@WheresThatSat is a Twitter bot that provides location information about mentioned satellites. It is based on Chatterbot and Ground Track Generator. Visit wheresthatsat.com for more info!
Invoking the bot script performs a single update, which comprises replying to any queries received since the last update. In addition to responding to queries addressed to @WheresThatSat, the bot can optionally also search for and reply to any mentions of specified satellites (this is useful to actively broadcast information about "newsmaking" satellites - people seem like getting the nitty gritty details on the news they're posting about - but should be used sparingly to avoid seeming "spammy"). The bot script can be invoked periodically with cron or a similar tool. At present it runs every 10 minutes.
When responding to a tweet about a given satellite, it looks up the corresponding two-line element set (periodically retrieved from CelesTrak. It gives the time of the tweet and the TLE to Ground Track Generator, which returns location information as well as other attribute data about the satellite's state. This data is packed into a URL parameter string and posted to Twitter. The URL leads to wheresthatsat.com/map.html, where a Javascript renders the parameter data on an embedded Google Map. (Packing the data into the URL parameter string avoids the need for a database by essentially using Twitter's t.co URL shortening as the data store. A proper database-backed alternative is under consideration and will facilitate more features.)
The web site, including the wheresthatsat.js script that plots the parameter data, is available in the gh-pages branch of this repository.
To report bugs or see a list of tentatively planned improvements, see the Issues page.
WheresThatSat is freely distributed under an open source MIT License:
Copyright (c) 2012 Jim DeVona
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.