🌌 X-Ray Pulsar Navigation (XNAV)

An onboard X-ray detector times photon arrivals from three known millisecond pulsars and folds them into a per-pulsar pulse profile that sharpens as more photons accumulate. Comparing each pulsar's measured pulse-arrival phase against its precisely known intrinsic period lets the craft triangulate its own 3D position with no radio signal, no ground station and no GPS-like constellation. Drag the craft's true position and watch the fix converge as counts build up, or run a multi-second cruise comparing unbounded dead-reckoning drift against a continuously refined pulsar-navigation fix.

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install