As I write this, four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft are flying around the Moon — the first humans to do so since Apollo 17 in 1972. The Artemis II mission has the entire world looking up. And if you’re interested in getting into OSINT, you should be looking up too.
Space is no longer just the domain of rocket scientists and astronauts. It’s increasingly a domain of intelligence — and open-source intelligence (OSINT) at that. The same principles we apply to tracking ships, aircraft, and people on Earth also apply to objects in orbit. And while space-based assets are cosmically classified, most of the data you need to start doing space OSINT is openly and freely available.
So, in the spirit of Artemis II, here are five tools and resources that will get you started with OSINT beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
1. Google Earth Pro — Moon, Mars & Sky
You probably already have Google Earth Pro installed. What you might not know is that it can take you off-planet entirely.
In the desktop version, click the Saturn-shaped icon at the top toolbar and you can switch between Earth, Sky, Moon, and Mars. The Moon mode includes Apollo landing site tours narrated by the astronauts themselves, 3D terrain, and high-resolution imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Mars mode gives you orbital photos, infrared surface data, and 360-degree panoramas from the rovers. Sky mode lets you browse stars, galaxies, and nebulae using Hubble Space Telescope imagery— all from the same software you use for geolocation on Earth.
It’s the lowest barrier to entry for anyone curious about what OSINT looks like beyond our atmosphere.
2. CelesTrak — Real-Time Satellite Tracking
CelesTrak is the backbone of open-source space situational awareness. Maintained as a nonprofit by Dr. T.S. Kelso, it provides freely accessible Two-Line Element (TLE) data — the standard format describing a satellite’s orbital parameters — for thousands of objects in Earth orbit. You can visualize any satellite’s position, check for potential collisions using its SOCRATES tool, and track everything from the International Space Station to debris from anti-satellite weapons tests.
CelesTrak gets its data primarily from the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron via Space-Track.org (free account required) — the official public catalogue of every tracked object in orbit. Between these two resources, you have the raw material for serious orbital analysis.
3. Jonathan McDowell’s Space Report & GCAT
If CelesTrak tells you where something is, Jonathan McDowell tells you what it is and where it came from. His General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT) is an open, freely available dataset covering payloads, rocket bodies, debris, launch dates, orbital classes, and operational statuses. His weekly newsletter, Jonathan’s Space Report, is widely considered the gold standard for independent spaceflight data and has corrected numerous official launch records over the decades.
For OSINT practitioners, McDowell’s work is invaluable when you need to answer questions like: what did Russia actually put into orbit on a specific date? What payload was aboard a particular launch vehicle?
When independent analysts started flagging suspicious Russian satellite behavior (more on that below), it was resources like GCAT and Space-Track.org that provided the historical launch data needed to piece the pattern together.
4. SkyOSINT.io — Analytical Space Intelligence
SkyOSINT.io takes satellite tracking a step further. Where CelesTrak gives you positional data, SkyOSINT.io layers on behavioral analysis, orbital maneuver detection, and geopolitical context. It tracks over 15,000 objects in real time and can flag which foreign satellites are currently overflying specific territories, whether an object has changed its orbit, and what that change might mean.
This is the tool that bridges the gap between “where is this satellite?” and “what is this satellite doing— and why should I care?” For anyone who has used flight trackers like Flightradar24 or ship trackers like MarineTraffic, SkyOSINT.io is the orbital equivalent.
5. The Human Element: Marco Langbroek & the Inspector Satellite Case
No tool list is complete without mentioning the people who use them. Dr. Marco Langbroek, a lecturer at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is one of the most important independent space analysts working today.
Langbroek was the first to publicly flag that Russia’s Cosmos 2558, launched in August 2022, had been deliberately inserted into the same orbital plane as the classified American reconnaissance satellite USA 326 — approaching within roughly 60 kilometers. His analysis combined publicly available launch timing (noting the rocket launched precisely as USA 326 passed over the Plesetsk cosmodrome), TLE data from Space-Track.org, and his own optical observations. The U.S. Space Command later condemned the launch as irresponsible. As of 2025, at least three Russian “inspector satellites” have been tracked co-orbiting with American spy satellites using these same open-source methods — and Cosmos 2558 even released a sub-satellite in June 2025, raising further concerns about potential anti-satellite capabilities.
This is OSINT at its finest: publicly available data, independent analysis, and conclusions that governments couldn’t ignore.
Bonus: Artemis II Tracker
Since we’re riding the Artemis wave, you can actually follow the mission live. NASA’s Artemis Real-time Orbit Website, or AROW, lets anyone with an internet connection see exactly where Orion and its crew are at any given moment: distance from Earth, distance from the Moon, velocity, and mission elapsed time — all visualized against the spacecraft’s trajectory. It’s also available on the NASA app, which adds an augmented reality feature that lets you point your phone at the sky and see where Orion is relative to your position.
What makes AROW particularly interesting for OSINT-minded folks is that NASA is also publishing raw trajectory data (ephemeris files) that anyone can download and plug into their own spaceflight software, telescope tracking setup, or data visualization. Open data, open tools, open space.
The mission is expected to splash down around April 10, so if you’re reading this in time, go have a look.
Looking Up
Space OSINT is still a niche within our field, but it’s growing fast. As more nations launch more satellites — and as the line between civilian and military spacecraft continues to blur — the ability to monitor what’s happening in orbit will become an increasingly valuable skill for analysts, journalists, and investigators.
The tools are free. The data is open. And right now, four humans are flying around the Moon while the rest of us can track their journey in real time.
Not a bad time to start looking up.
by Vlad Sutea
Founder and Lead OSINT Trainer
The post OSINT Among the Stars: 5 Tools for Space Investigations appeared first on Knowmad OSINT.