Skyfield visible area underneath EarthSatellite

Question

How would I calculate the area below an EarthSatellite so that I can plot the swath of land covered as the satellite passes over?

Is there anything in Skyfield that would facilitate that?

Edit: Just thought I'd clarify what I mean by area below the satellite. I need to plot the maximum area below the satellite possible to observe given that the Earth is a spheroid. I know how to plot the satellite path, but now I need to plot some lines to represent the area visible by that satellite as it flies over the earth.

Answer 1

Your edit made it clear what you want. The visible area from a satellite can be easily calculated (when the earth is seen as a sphere). A good source to get some background on the visible portion can be found here. To calculate the visible area when the earth is seen as an oblate spheroid will be a lot harder (and maybe even impossible). I think it's better to reform that part of the question and post it on Mathematics.

If you want to calculate the visible area when the earth is seen as a sphere we need to make some adjustments in Skyfield. With a satellite loaded using the TLE api you can easily get a sub point with the position on earth. The library is calling this the Geocentric position, but actually it's the Geodetic position (where the earth is seen as an oblate spheroid). To correct this we need to adjust subpoint of the Geocentric class to use the calculation for the Geocentric position and not the Geodetic position. Due to a bug and missing information in the reverse_terra function we also need to replace that function. And we need to be able to retrieve the earth radius. This results in the following:

from skyfield import api
from skyfield.positionlib import ICRF, Geocentric
from skyfield.constants import (AU_M, ERAD, DEG2RAD,
                                IERS_2010_INVERSE_EARTH_FLATTENING, tau)
from skyfield.units import Angle

from numpy import einsum, sqrt, arctan2, pi, cos, sin

def reverse_terra(xyz_au, gast, iterations=3):
    """Convert a geocentric (x,y,z) at time `t` to latitude and longitude.
    Returns a tuple of latitude, longitude, and elevation whose units
    are radians and meters.  Based on Dr. T.S. Kelso's quite helpful
    article "Orbital Coordinate Systems, Part III":
    https://www.celestrak.com/columns/v02n03/
    """
    x, y, z = xyz_au
    R = sqrt(x*x + y*y)

    lon = (arctan2(y, x) - 15 * DEG2RAD * gast - pi) % tau - pi
    lat = arctan2(z, R)

    a = ERAD / AU_M
    f = 1.0 / IERS_2010_INVERSE_EARTH_FLATTENING
    e2 = 2.0*f - f*f
    i = 0
    C = 1.0
    while i < iterations:
        i += 1
        C = 1.0 / sqrt(1.0 - e2 * (sin(lat) ** 2.0))
        lat = arctan2(z + a * C * e2 * sin(lat), R)
    elevation_m = ((R / cos(lat)) - a * C) * AU_M
    earth_R = (a*C)*AU_M
    return lat, lon, elevation_m, earth_R

def subpoint(self, iterations):
    """Return the latitude an longitude directly beneath this position.

    Returns a :class:`~skyfield.toposlib.Topos` whose ``longitude``
    and ``latitude`` are those of the point on the Earth's surface
    directly beneath this position (according to the center of the
    earth), and whose ``elevation`` is the height of this position
    above the Earth's center.
    """
    if self.center != 399:  # TODO: should an __init__() check this?
        raise ValueError("you can only ask for the geographic subpoint"
                            " of a position measured from Earth's center")
    t = self.t
    xyz_au = einsum('ij...,j...->i...', t.M, self.position.au)
    lat, lon, elevation_m, self.earth_R = reverse_terra(xyz_au, t.gast, iterations)

    from skyfield.toposlib import Topos
    return Topos(latitude=Angle(radians=lat),
                    longitude=Angle(radians=lon),
                    elevation_m=elevation_m)

def earth_radius(self):
    return self.earth_R

def satellite_visiable_area(earth_radius, satellite_elevation):
    """Returns the visible area from a satellite in square meters.

    Formula is in the form is 2piR^2h/R+h where:
        R = earth radius
        h = satellite elevation from center of earth
    """
    return ((2 * pi * ( earth_radius ** 2 ) * 
            ( earth_radius + satellite_elevation)) /
            (earth_radius + earth_radius + satellite_elevation))


stations_url = 'http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/stations.txt'
satellites = api.load.tle(stations_url)
satellite = satellites['ISS (ZARYA)']
print(satellite)

ts = api.load.timescale()
t = ts.now()

geocentric = satellite.at(t)
geocentric.subpoint = subpoint.__get__(geocentric, Geocentric)
geocentric.earth_radius = earth_radius.__get__(geocentric, Geocentric)

geodetic_sub = geocentric.subpoint(3)

print('Geodetic latitude:', geodetic_sub.latitude)
print('Geodetic longitude:', geodetic_sub.longitude)
print('Geodetic elevation (m)', int(geodetic_sub.elevation.m))
print('Geodetic earth radius (m)', int(geocentric.earth_radius()))

geocentric_sub = geocentric.subpoint(0)
print('Geocentric latitude:', geocentric_sub.latitude)
print('Geocentric longitude:', geocentric_sub.longitude)
print('Geocentric elevation (m)', int(geocentric_sub.elevation.m))
print('Geocentric earth radius (m)', int(geocentric.earth_radius()))
print('Visible area (m^2)', satellite_visiable_area(geocentric.earth_radius(), 
                                                    geocentric_sub.elevation.m))