Ground Station Setup

The following assumes that you have already read Initial Setup guide. You should be able to develop from any of the platforms mentioned: Linux, WSL or Mac.

General Setup

All our Ground Station code is hosted in the ground-station repository on our Github. So let’s clone that first. Run the following command in a directory of your choice to clone the repository:
Terminal window
```
# if you use https (common way of doing git)
git clone https://github.com/UWOrbital/ground-station.git

# or if you use SSH
git clone git@github.com:UWOrbital/ground-station.git
```
Setup the pre-commit by running the following command in the repository’s root directory:
Terminal window
```
pre-commit install
```
Now you can follow either the Backend section for Backend setup or the Frontend for Frontend setup.

Backend Setup

Be sure to have python version 3.12 installed on your system.
Install a python build tool called uv. Instructions can be found here.
From the repository’s root run the following command to add all the necessary packages you need.
Terminal window
```
uv sync
```
(Highly Recommended) If you are working with the database, you should set up Postgres as well. The guide can be found in the section below this one called Database Setup.
Hopefully your database is now setup! To do a sanity check try running our test suite for the backend and see if some tests pass (some of them will fail, to get them working refer to Working with commands). Use the following commands from the root of the respository:
Terminal window
```
# Activate venv (choose the proper way to activate based on dev environment)
source .venv/bin/activate

# Run Pytest
uv run pytest
```
These tests take long to run so you can stop them with the shortcut Ctrl+C.
To run the backend from the root repository, and initialize the database (make sure the venv is activated):
Terminal window
```
fastapi dev backend/main.py
```
Alternatively, if you have docker, run the docker scripts!
Terminal window
```
docker-compose -f scripts/dev/docker-compose.yml up --build
```

Database Setup

Open a terminal and run the following commands to install PostgreSQL (make sure you are in the root of the ground-station repository):
Terminal window
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt install postgresql-16
```
Run sudo -u postgres psql --version to ensure PostgreSQL was installed properly. It should print that the major version is 16.
Run the following commands to setup PostgreSQL for the ground station.

Make your PostgreSQL username the same as your Linux username. Also, try not to include special characters in your password as it may break connection strings.
Terminal window
```
# Connect to PostgreSQL CLI as the postgres superuser
sudo -u postgres psql
# Replace your_username and your_password with your desired values
CREATE USER your_username WITH PASSWORD 'your_password' SUPERUSER;
CREATE DATABASE gs;
```

Log out, then verify that you can log in to your newly created user and database:

\q # Log out
# Replace your_username with your actual username
psql -U your_username -d gs
# You should be logged into the database
\q # Log out again

From the root directory, run the following commands to create a new .env file:
Terminal window
```
cp ./template.env ./.env
```
Edit the .env file to add your login details for the database user you created in Step 3 in the quotes. In Linux/WSL, you can use vim or nano as the editor.
From the root directory, run the following command to initialize your database with the correct schema:
Terminal window
```
sudo apt install alembic
# Make sure you are running the venv located in .venv in the root directory
source ./.venv/bin/activate
cd backend
alembic upgrade head
# Go back to the root
cd ..
```
Your database should now be setup! Now you can revisit the Backend Setup section and do the remaining steps (Step 5 and 6)

Frontend Setup

Install Nodejs on your systems using the instructions found here. It is recommended you choose the instructions for Linux or macOS using nvm.
Go to the website of your choice in the frontend/ directory: either aro or mcc. Run the following command to install dependencies:
Terminal window
```
npm install
```
To see a preview of the site you can run the following command to see a dev preview:
Terminal window
```
npm run dev
```
Alternatively, if you have docker, run the docker scripts!
Terminal window
```
docker-compose -f scripts/dev/docker-compose.yml up --build
```

Contributing

Before you get coding and build some amazing skills make sure you understand the task workflow which you can find below!

Task Workflow