TRACE is a high-precision

orbit determination Orbit determination is the estimation of orbits of objects such as moons, planets, and spacecraft. One major application is to allow tracking newly observed asteroids and verify that they have not been previously discovered. The basic methods wer ...

and orbit propagation program. It was developed by

The Aerospace Corporation The Aerospace Corporation is an American nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in El Segundo, California. The corporation provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space mi ...

in El Segundo, California. An early version ran on the

IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 se ...

computer in 1964. The Fortran source code can be compiled for any

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

with a Fortran

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

. When Satellite Tool Kit's high-precision orbit propagator and parameter and coordinate frame transformations underwent an Independent Verification and Validation effort in 2000, TRACE v2.4.9 was the standard against which STK was compared. As of 2013, TRACE is still used by the U.S. Government and some of its technical contractors.

References

Astrophysics Mathematical software Physics software {{astrophysics-stub