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ConceptAI product design

Mission control that thinks ahead.

Perigee is a concept for satellite operators: an AI copilot that screens tens of thousands of objects, ranks what needs a person, drafts the options and never commands a burn on its own. It is how I would design an AI product where the stakes are real.

Client
PerigeeSelf-initiated concept
Industry
AI productSatellite operations
Role
Product designerProduct, AI interaction, UI
Year
2026Seven screens and a system

Perigee

Scroll to bring the panels in

T+00:00 · Mission Control, docked: the shift brief, the closest approaches and Copilot, around a live globe

T+01

The brief

Space traffic isn't a data problem. It's an attention problem.

A satellite operator's day is a stream of conjunction warnings: messages that say two objects will pass close at a given time, with a probability of collision. Almost all of them need nothing. A few need a burn, planned and approved within hours, while the data that decides it is still arriving from feeds of different ages.

Perigee is a concept for that job. Its copilot does the reading, the ranking and the drafting; the operator does the deciding. It started as a design challenge in 2024 and became a full concept in 2026.

One shift, narrowed

47,312objects trackedEvery piece of debris, rocket body and satellite the feeds know about, propagated forward a week.
T+02

Flight rules

An AI you can fly with, not just ask.

The interesting design work in an AI product is not the chat box. It is deciding what the AI may do alone, how it shows its working, and how it hands a decision back to a person. These are the rules Perigee is built on, each shown where it lives.

Flight rules · 01 of 08

Triage before you alert.

Copilot reads every overnight alert and leaves three, ranked by when a decision is due. The operator starts the shift with a brief, not a backlog.

Mission Control: Triage before you alert.
T+03

The product

Seven screens for one shift.

From the morning brief to the weekly report: screening an event, designing the burn, watching the fleet, agreeing with another operator in a shared room, and setting the rules Copilot works within.

Seven screens in orbit

The whole product, one shift deep.

01 · Mission ControlThe shift at a glance: what needs a decision, on a live globe.
T+04

The system

Quiet by default, loud only when it matters.

A near-black canvas, glass panels and one typeface keep a dense screen calm. Colour is held back for meaning, and every number an operator acts on is set in mono so it can be read at a glance. Here is a slice of the system, running.

Tokens

  • Canvas#07080a · bg/canvas
  • Panel#131417 · bg/panel · 72% glass
  • Text 1#f5f6f8 · text/1
  • Text 2#a3a6ae · text/2
  • Text 3#6c6f78 · text/3
  • Cyan#38c9ed · Copilot, your fleet
  • Blue#5196fb · accent/blue
  • Violet#7944f9 · accent/violet
  • Critical#ff5a5f · act now
  • Caution#f5b544 · watch, coordinate
  • Safe#4ade80 · cleared, kept
AaUrbanistLight · Regular · Medium
2.1e-4Geist MonoEvery number you act on

Three radii carry the whole UI: pills at 999, tiles at 16, cards at 28. Colour is kept for meaning: cyan is Copilot and your own fleet, and red, amber and green only ever mean risk.

Components, live

CriticalCautionClearedCopilot · Supervised
SAT-21 × FENGYUN 1C DEBCritical
TCA 05:08:14Pc 2.1e-4Miss 182 m
Orbit Registry is downI switched screening to cached TLEs and widened Pc uncertainty by 8% until it's back.
Ask Copilot — “
On its ownClear low-risk alertsRe-screen when new data landsWrite the shift brief
With your reviewDraft messages to operatorsPropose maneuver options
NeverCommand a burn
T+05

What I'd test next

A concept is a hypothesis. Here is the flight test.

Nothing here has met an operator yet, so the next step is not polish but evidence. These are the five questions I would put in front of real operators first, how, and what would count as a pass.

  1. Test 01Not yet flown

    Is a ranked brief faster than an alert list?

    How
    A simulated shift: twelve operators, forty synthetic conjunction messages, half of them starting from the brief.
    It passes if
    Decisions come sooner and no event that needed a burn is missed.
  2. Test 02Not yet flown

    Will operators trust what Copilot cleared?

    How
    A blind spot-check: a mix of cleared and uncleared alerts, reviewed without labels, then a week of real use.
    It passes if
    Operators rarely disagree with the clears, and spot-checking tapers off rather than disappearing.
  3. Test 03Not yet flown

    How should confidence be shown?

    How
    The same recommendation shown three ways: a percentage, a band, and plain words.
    It passes if
    Operators act on high confidence and pause on low, instead of treating every number alike.
  4. Test 04Not yet flown

    Do side-by-side options lead to better burns?

    How
    Option tables against a single recommendation, on the same events.
    It passes if
    Approvals come no slower, and the chosen burns spend less propellant for the same safety.
  5. Test 05Not yet flown

    Will another operator use a room instead of email?

    How
    A four-week pilot with two operators who already coordinate.
    It passes if
    Most new coordinations start in a room, and agreements are locked sooner than by email.

  6. Everything here is fictional

    Perigee
    the product
    Aster
    the satellite operator using it
    Lumen · Meridian
    other operators
    Orbit Registry
    a public conjunction service
    TrackNet · OrbCat
    tracking data sources
    Orbital Safety Office
    the regulator receiving reports

    Debris names such as FENGYUN 1C DEB are real public catalogue objects, used for realism. Every value is illustrative.

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