- name
- heliospice
- description
- Query positions of spacecraft, planets, moons, and asteroids in the solar system
Heliospice
Query spacecraft and planetary ephemeris data using SPICE kernels.
Setup
pip install heliospiceWhat You Can Query
Spacecraft (36+): Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, Juno, Cassini, Voyager 1/2, Mars 2020, MRO, New Horizons, Europa Clipper, Psyche, BepiColombo, JUICE, Lucy, Galileo, Dawn, MESSENGER, and more...
Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Moons: Moon, Titan, Europa, Ganymede, Io, Phobos, Deimos, and many more
Other: Sun, asteroids, comets, Solar System Barycenter
Tools
get_spacecraft_ephemeris— Position at single time or timeseries (with optional velocity)compute_distance— Distance between two bodies over time range (min/max/mean, closest approach)transform_coordinates— Transform vectors between coordinate frames (RTN, J2000, ECLIPJ2000, etc.)list_spice_missions— List all supported spacecraftlist_coordinate_frames— List available coordinate framesmanage_kernels— Check status, download, load, or purge kernel cache
Examples
- "Where is Parker Solar Probe right now?"
- "What's Earth's distance from the Sun?"
- "Show me Juno's trajectory for January 2024"
- "When did Mars get closest to Jupiter in 2024?"
- "Convert this RTN vector to J2000 frame"
- "What's the current Moon position?"