poliastro 0.3.0

poliastro - Python package for Orbital Mechanics

Name:

poliastro

Website:

https://poliastro.github.io/

Author:

Juan Luis Cano Rodríguez <[e-mail]>

Version:

0.3.0

poliastro is an open source pure Python package dedicated to problems arising in Astrodynamics and Orbital Mechanics, such as orbit propagation, solution of the Lambert’s problem, conversion between position and velocity vectors and classical orbital elements and orbit plotting. It is released under the MIT license.

from poliastro.examples import molniya
from poliastro.plotting import plot

plot(molniya)

Requirements

poliastro requires the following Python packages:

• NumPy, for basic numerical routines

• Astropy, for physical units and time handling

• numba (optional), for accelerating the code

• jplephem, for the planetary ephemerides using SPICE kernels

• matplotlib, for the orbit plotting

poliastro is usually tested on Linux and Windows on Python 2.7, 3.3 and 3.4 (single codebase). It should work on OS X too with no changes (not tested).

Installation

The easiest and fastest way to get the package up and running is to install poliastro using conda:

$ conda install poliastro --channel poliastro

You can also install poliastro from PyPI using pip, given that you already have all the requirements:

$ pip install poliastro

You can also download poliastro source from GitHub and type:

$ python setup.py install

Development installations are also supported thanks to setuptools:

$ python setup.py develop

It is recommended that you never ever use sudo with distutils, pip, setuptools and friends in Linux because you might seriously break your system [1][2][3][4]. Options are per user directories, virtualenv or local installations.

Testing

If installed correctly, the tests can be run using py.test:

$ python -c "import poliastro; poliastro.test()"
Running unit tests for poliastro
[...]
OK
$

Contributing

Code writing

Code contributions are welcome! Just send a pull request and we’ll discuss it. In the wiki you can find some documents explaining the overall design of poliastro, and in the issue tracker you may find pending tasks waiting for someone to complete them.

Bug reporting

I am one of those that writes bug-free code every single time, but if you think you’ve found one please refer to the issue tracker on GitHub.

Citing

If you use poliastro on your project, please drop me a line.

License

poliastro is released under the MIT license, hence allowing commercial use of the library. Please refer to the COPYING file.

FAQ

Does it work on Windows and OS X too?

poliastro is tested on Windows (see above). It is a pure Python package with no compiled extensions, so it should work under Windows or Mac OS X with properly installed dependencies. Please file a bug on the issue tracker otherwise.

What’s up with the name?

poliastro comes from Polimi, which is the shortened name of the Politecnico di Milano, the Italian university where I was studying while writing this software. It’s my tiny tribute to a place I came to love. Grazie mille!