Pandora Spacecraft

This package helps you quickly estimate Pandora's position and velocity at a particular time. Check the example usage to see how to use this package to calculate Pandora's orbital properties.

Installation

To install you can use

pip install pandoraspacecraft --upgrade

You should update your package often, as we frequently we will add new TLEs. Check your version number using

import pandoraspacecraft as ps
ps.__version__

This package will download and store SPICE kernels into a directory in your home area when you use any of the objects. This means that if you install this package in multiple environments, the SPICE kernels will not be redownloaded and will be shared between multiple installs.

If you run into any problems with your installation, try clearing the cache and then restarting your session

from pandoraspacecraft.utils import clear_cache
clear_cache()

To uninstall this package from your machine entirely you should uninstall it

pip uninstall pandoraspacecraft

And clear the cache of SPICE kernel files using

from astropy.utils.data import clear_download_cache
clear_download_cache(pkgname='pandoraspacecraft')

or by deleting the .pandoraspacecraft/cache/ directory in your home area.

Test mode

This package now installs with a lightweight set of truncated kernels which can be used to test the functionality, but cover a very limited time range and set of bodies. These files are available in src/data/kernels/testkernels.

If you need to use this package as a depency and want to run tests, use

import pandoraspacecraft as psc
psc.enable_test_mode()

This will set up a minimum number of kernels that are shipped with the package, and will not download anything from the internet. This ensures you can use, for example, GitHub actions without downloading anything.

The test kernel is only valid between the following dates:

• 2026-02-20 20:09:56.999998
• 2026-02-25 11:33:59.999999

TLEs

TLEs are not used by this package but are maintained and pushed to GitHub.

Troubleshooting

If you have any trouble with PandoraSpacecraft the best first answer is to clear your cache of SPICE kernels. You can do this with

from pandoraspacecraft.utils import clear_cache
clear_cache()

You should also make sure your install is up to date with the current version!