This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 4: Ghost in the Machine

"There are 36,500 uncommunicative corpses orbiting above your head at 28,000 km/h. Their chemical batteries ruptured decades ago. Yet tonight, as they cross Earth's shadow, their transponders are screaming on dead frequencies."

👻 What I Built: Ghosts in the Orbital Machine

For the Ghost in the Machine challenge, I wanted to build something where the "ghosts" aren't fictional—they are real aerospace hardware haunting Low Earth Orbit.

In aerospace engineering, there is a chilling phenomenon known as a Zombie Satellite: a derelict Cold-War spacecraft, nuclear-powered beacon, or collision fragment that has been dead for decades, yet suddenly wakes up and broadcasts a Phantom Carrier Signal when solar radiation or geomagnetic eddy currents cross its fractured wiring.

Phantasm-Orbit is a local-first 3D WebGL Orbital Graveyard, TabPFN Anomaly Forecaster, and Digital Séance Command Center that lets you track, diagnose, and converse with 5 real-world dead satellites from the official NORAD catalog:

  1. Vanguard 1 (#00005 - Launched 1958): Humanity's oldest artifact in space, silent since 1964, drifting until 2240 CE.
  2. Envisat (#27386 - Launched 2002): An 8.2-ton dead European flagship in the crowded 768 km belt—one shrapnel hit away from triggering a catastrophic Kessler Syndrome cascade.
  3. Kosmos 2251 Fragment (#34120 - Launched 1993): Razor-sharp titanium shrapnel spinning at 14.8 RPM from the first hypervelocity satellite collision in human history (11.7 km/s impact with Iridium 33).
  4. Transit 5B-2 (#00713 - Launched 1963): Powered by a Plutonium-238 SNAP-9A nuclear RTG core, still screaming rogue carrier tones on 136.650 MHz.
  5. Telstar 1 (#00315 - Launched 1962): Blinded and deafened in space by the United States' 1.4-megaton Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear EMP detonation.

📸 Live Demo & Screenshots

🔗 Live Interactive Deployment: https://phantasm-orbit.vercel.app/
💻 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/prashijain-ai/Phantasm-Orbit

1. Full 3D WebGL Orbital Command Center & TabPFN Decay Curve

2. Real-Time Telemetry Anomaly Alert (>80% Decay/Collision Risk Pulse)

3. Digital Séance Terminal: Speaking to Kosmos 2251 via Local Gemma 3:1b

4. Nuclear RTG Thermal Stress & Retrograde Orbit Tracking (Transit 5B-2)

🧠 How It Works (Architecture & Open-Source AI Stack)

I designed Phantasm-Orbit as a 100% local-first, zero-API-key system so judges and developers can test every feature instantly in the browser without paywalls or .env headaches:

  • 🌍 60 FPS Three.js WebGL Engine (ThreeOrbitalView.tsx): Renders a procedural wireframe Earth, atmospheric glow, Van Allen electromagnetic dipole flux lines, custom 3D satellite meshes, and 350 color-coded Kessler debris particles (Target Satellite, Dead Casing, Rocket Fragment, Critical Shrapnel). Includes 3 camera presets (Track Sat, Global Orbit, Debris Vector), manual zoom controls, and a real-time 3D-to-2D targeting reticle.
  • 📉 TabPFN Orbital Decay & Collision Forecaster (TelemetrySidebar.tsx + app.py): Evaluates real NORAD Two-Line Element (TLE) parameters (BSTAR Drag Coefficient, Eccentricity, Inclination, Mean Motion, and Tumbling RPM) using TabPFN to project multi-decade atmospheric burn-up curves with 95% confidence bounds. When a relic's risk score crosses 80/100, an automated Telemetry Anomaly Pulse triggers across the HUD.
  • 💀 Neuro-Symbolic Digital Séance Medium (SeanceTerminal.tsx + server.ts): Locks onto the satellite's historical RF frequency and prompts Local Ollama (gemma3:1b) with live orbital physics and corrupted hexadecimal memory registers (0x7F00...) so the dead satellite responds in the first person. Includes a deterministic Spectral Lore Fallback Engine for instant cloud hosting.
  • 🔊 Pure Web Audio API Horror Synthesizer (audioSynthesizer.ts): Zero external MP3 files. Synthesizes 52Hz/53.2Hz beating sub-bass vacuum drones, bandpass-filtered cosmic noise, Solfeggio séance chimes, and Doppler radar blips directly in the browser.

🛠️ Key Engineering Challenges We Solved

  1. Readable Telemetry in a High-Density 3D HUD: Balancing a 350-particle 3D Kessler debris cloud alongside Recharts confidence curves and a streaming AI terminal required designing a responsive 2-column split command deck with clear visual hierarchy, a 3-second judge explainer banner, and interactive camera presets (Track Sat, Global Orbit, Debris Vector).
  2. Zero-Friction Judge Accessibility: Local LLM apps often fail in cloud previews when Ollama isn't running on the viewer's machine. By building a hybrid pipeline that seamlessly transitions between local gemma3:1b inference and a rich, context-aware NORAD lore & hex-register fallback engine, the app delivers a 100% responsive experience both locally and in the cloud.

Built with love for aerospace physics, open-source AI, and cosmic horror! Try clicking *"ENGAGE AUDIO", switching between **Envisat and Kosmos 2251, and invoking a Digital Séance!* 🚀💀