Real-time International Space Station (ISS) Position Tracker with Deduplication

• Automated Real-time Tracking: Automatically fetches the ISS position every minute using a Cron trigger.
• Direct API Integration: Seamlessly pulls live data from the wheretheiss.at public API.
• Intelligent Data Deduplication: Employs a Function node to store workflow-static data, ensuring only unique ISS position updates (based on timestamp) are processed, preventing redundant data.
• Clean Data Output: Provides filtered latitude, longitude, and timestamp, ready for further analysis or integration.
• Easy to Extend: The clean, filtered output can be easily connected to databases, notification services, or visualization tools.

This workflow is designed for immediate use with minimal configuration.

1. Deploy the Workflow: Import this JSON snippet into your n8n instance.
2. Cron Node (Cron): This node is pre-configured to run the workflow everyMinute. No changes are typically needed here, but you can adjust the frequency if desired.
3. HTTP Request Node (HTTP Request): This node is set up to call the https://api.wheretheiss.at/v1/satellites/25544/positions API. It includes a timestamps query parameter with ={{Date.now();}} to fetch the most current data. No configuration is required.
4. Set Node (Set): This node extracts latitude, longitude, and timestamp from the API response and ensures only these fields are passed to the next step. No configuration is required.
5. Function Node (Function): This node contains the core logic for deduplication. It uses this.getWorkflowStaticData("node") to store and compare timestamps, only returning data that hasn't been seen before. While pre-configured, you can extend this node to add more complex filtering or data manipulation if needed. For example, you could add logic to check if the ISS is over a specific region.
6. Connect to Your Desired Output: After the Function node, connect subsequent nodes to utilize the filtered ISS position data. For instance, add a "Write to Google Sheets" node, a "Slack" node for notifications, or a "PostgreSQL" node for database storage.