Questions tagged [tracking]
Questions regarding systems used to continually locate objects, often radar.
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What caused so many objects in Earth orbit to “go NEA”? (no elements availabe)
T. S. Kelso tweeted the following, is this a case of lost and found? How can so many substantial objects become lost like this? The list of 23 objects "formerly known as Prince NEA" all seem pretty ...
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1answer
186 views
How will Starlink satellites be capable of tracking on-orbit debris and autonomously avoiding collision?
The press kit for the first Falcon 9 Starlink launch and deployment of the first 60 satllites scheduled for May 15, 2019 says:
Starlink satellites are capable of tracking on-orbit debris and ...
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1answer
161 views
Why does 2018-099 (SpaceX, December 2018) still have a dozen unidentified payloads?
According to today's Raw SATCAT Data from Celestrak, the launch designated 2018-099 (SpaceX, December 2018) still has twelve unidentified payload objects!
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SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy Launch 4/11/19
Will it be possible to see the launch from the Dominican Republic as to goes into space? Staying there the next few days/nights.
What is the track out of Cape Canaveral?
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1answer
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What is Space Policy Directive 3 and how does it relate to the Space Fence?
In response to a question about the recent ASAT test by India producing a new debris field in LEO, Patrick Murphy, Director of Strategy, Planning, & Integration for NASA Space Technology Mission ...
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What steel ball was thrown out of the ISS to help test how well ground stations can track orbital debris?
The question What kinds of things have been tossed out of the ISS? has a broken YouTube link. This is why it's good to include at least the name of the video in your post (which I didn't back in 2016)....
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What are the space-based optical satellite sensors?
I was looking at a products page for Numerica Corp, and under their product MFAST it said (emphasis mine):
Tracks objects in all regimes of space (e.g., LEO, MEO, HEO, GEO) using radar, ground-...
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Which nations own tracking ships for support of rocket launches?
This wikipedia list of tracking ships contains ships of the following nations: China, France, Russia and USA.
Are there no other missile range instrumentation ships for support of space operations of ...
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1answer
113 views
How does this fast-slewing dish track moving spacecraft?
Elon Musk's recent tweet shows a video clip of a modest-sized dish on fairly fast-slewing mount located:
At SpaceX Boca Chica launch site in Texas
In the question Why is the reflector on this ...
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2answers
235 views
Where can I find the TLE of ExseedSat 1, India's first ever private LEO satellite?
On 3rd December 2018, a private Indian company Exseed Space launched it's first ever satellite into space called ExseedSat 1. But I couldn't find the TLE for this satellite. I looked it up on n2yo ...
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What is the Cheapest way to track my balloon (only altitude or gps coordinates)? [closed]
I want to build extreme cheap high altitude stuff - balloon, paper plane :) anything. Its cold outside now, and i dont want to track, and collect the my landed "spacecraft".
So, i need a very cheap ...
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Where is the “antenna farm” from which this Soyuz launch photo was taken?
The Phys.org article SpaceX Christmas delivery arrives at space station
had a small version of this photo, and I found this large one at wirenews.com's SpaceX Christmas delivery arrives at space ...
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Can the deactivated satellites also be tracked through TLE?
TLE is used to track whether the satellites are in orbit or not. However, is it possible that a particular satellite is deactivated, decommissioned or deorbited yet its TLE is being updated regularly?
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1answer
92 views
Need help identifying this (likely to be) phased array antenna used to track launches
I need help identifying the (what I believe to be) flat (and possibly phased) array antenna shown next to the tracking telescope in this photo, which can be found both here and here where the ...
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What is this combination tracking telescope and helical antenna pair? was it really used, and who is/was FlightLine?
I spotted the image below here which I found here (also seen here).
Zooming in on this combination pair of telescope trackers and pair of RHCP and LHCP (right- and left-handed circular polarization) ...
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How was “toolbag-sat” imaged in space? (from Scott Manley's video)
In Scott Manley's video Could An Astronaut Throw Something From Orbit To Earth? at about 02:00 he includes a sequence of images that shows the famous tool bag that ...
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Are commercial communications satellites in GEO being constantly monitored by telescopes?
I was trying to look up GOES-17 in Spaceflight101 but got sidetracked in the search result and ended up reading this thread about AMC-9, which links to the YouTube video Rough cut video of AMC-9 ...
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What just happened? What does this satellite breakup announcement mean? What does it suggest?
I logged into Space-Track and immediately saw this message:
The 18th Space Control Squadron has confirmed the breakup of SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR), #36407. The time of breakup was at approximately 0206z,...
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4answers
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Is there a satellite that tracks other satellites?
Is there a satellite that tracks other satellites, or is tracking always done from ground stations?
Ground stations can only see a small part of the sky, so a network of stations would be needed. A ...
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1answer
78 views
Are there publicly-available non-amateur sources of TLEs other than Space-Track?
As an amateur satellite tracker, and sometime reentry analyst, I am always anxious to get the newest tracking data for low-orbiting spacecraft. I have had to rely exclusively on Space-Track for the ...
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Which LEO satellite lost over 30 km of altitude in the geomagnetic storm of 13-14 March 1989?
This answer includes the following information:
During the great geomagnetic storm of 13-14 March 1989, tracking of thousands of space objects was lost and it took North American Defense Command (...
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Has NORAD ever experienced a catastrophic event and “lost track of” a bunch of objects?
NORAD tracks satellites for several very important reasons. From time to time an object might become temporarily mis-identified or otherwise confused with another object, these things usually get ...
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How does the SpaceBEEs' experimental passive radar reflector work?
My Question: What is the nature of the "experimental passive radar reflector developed by the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command"? How does it work, and why does it work for only a ...
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1answer
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Are SpaceBEEs actually hard to track?
The IEEE News article FCC Accuses Stealthy Startup of Launching Rogue Satellites focuses mostly on the intrigue addressed in the question What checks are supposed to be carried out to prevent illegal ...
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Sun-synchronous satellite orbit propagation
I'm trying to propagate the orbit of a sun-synchronous satellite. The initial data is defined by the TLE.
The orbit of the satellite is controlled by the operator ...
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1answer
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How can I find sources for Launch Trajectories?
The trajectories of space launches and the deployment of their payload (both scientific and commercial) are certainly carefully monitored by the space agency or company providing the launch capability,...
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Why does NASA still use film cameras?
According to this video, NASA still operates some cameras for tracking rocket launches that use film:
According to NASA, they even have some film cameras placed around
their launch site loaded ...
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4answers
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Is it possible to track an object as small as the Tesla Roadster around the Solar System
I have heard that we will soon lose track of the Tesla Roadster launched with the Falcon Heavy test launch. Yet, we know where Voyager is out beyond the Solar System and we followed other satellites ...
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1answer
443 views
Will the Tesla Roadster/Falcon 9H 2nd stage ever be a navigation hazard to cis-lunar space?
The saying "What goes around, comes around" can apply to spacecraft on ballistic trajectories that are launched from Earth into bound heliocentric orbits. Since the Tesla Roadster/Falcon 9H 2nd stage'...
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For how long/far can we track Starman
Radar tracking is used for Earth satellites and big enough asteroids. As the FH-launched Tesla Roadster is leaving the Earth-Moon system and it is quite small object (the car + the payload adapter are ...
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416 views
It's been over two weeks now, will the real Humanity Star please stand up?
edit: This must be some kind of record! (cf. ISRO's PSLV-C37 with 104 satellites - after 56 hours only six TLEs, which factor is greatest challenge? This time its only six total!)
At the end of ...
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Suppose Zuma wasn't “lost” — what would it take to detect it?
Being a secret government launch, there has been speculation maybe the Zuma satellite wasn't lost, and claims to the contrary are a ruse to throw off parties who'd like to track it. There is possible ...
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is space-track.org a free service?
Is the website space-track.org a free service ?
If not can someone give other free website to track space debris.
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1answer
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Why were early satellites produced with polished “mirror-like” surfaces?
Many/most early artificial satellites were spheres with mirror-like polished outer surfaces.
I am guessing that for lower orbits the spherical shape minimized drag as well as simplified the analysis ...
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1answer
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What determines if a star tracker blends two stars that are close to each other?
If two stars are very close to each other, a star tracker could identify the pair as a single star, with a magnitude and position different from both stars. This obviously impairs the software's ...
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How well could a satellite hide from Earth detection?
If there are only a few "enemy" radars at known locations that can detect a satellite in LEO, I'd assume there are some radar stealth methods using a spacecraft carefully shaped and oriented such that ...
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Equinoctial Elements and Perturbative Effects
I have an Orbital model in Equinoctial Elements (paper). There is a perturbative acceleration term in the model.
Can someone point me to some relevant papers showing how to include different ...
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1answer
222 views
Are 1U cubesats sufficiently detectable to get at least minimally usefully predictive public TLEs, updated regularly?
Satellite radar cross-sections is a complex function of satellite structure, design, materials, instantaneous attitude, (radar) frequency, polarization, and if has moving parts, configuration, just to ...
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CubeSat Orbit Determination
I'm thinking about the feasibility of making a CubeSat to test the EM drive thruster. Assuming the microwave electronics and resonant cavity could be scaled down to CubeSat size (5 watts, let's say), ...
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How accurate can near earth asteroids be tracked?
To get more statistical significance for the suspected flyby-anomaly (or to refute it), it would be desirable to track as many hyperbolic earth flybys to within 1mm/s as we can get. Can we track ...
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1answer
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Is it possible for the Deep Space Network to use MSPA and antenna arraying simultaneously?
Suppose Mars Odyssey (ODY) and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) are being tracked by antenna A (just for example) at the Goldstone Deep Space Network complex in MSPA mode.
Is it possible for ...
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2answers
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Is this the longest that a spacecraft “went to sleep” and then woke up on schedule?
For various reasons, spacecraft are sometimes "put to sleep" for periods of time on long voyages. Many systems are shut down, and radio communications suspended. Tracking of spacecraft at very large ...
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Would a Voyager spacecraft trajectory change be recognized?
Consider the following hypothetical event:
a Voyager spacecraft (1 or 2) changes its planned interstellar trajectory quite suddenly (I'm well aware of motion and gravity laws and I know that this ...
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1answer
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What are these enclosed regions on the Mission Control Center map?
Whilst watching NASA TV over the years, I've often seen the map on the wall of Mission Control:
"Main Screen in the ISS Mission Control Center", by AGeekMom, CC BY 2.0
In ...
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1answer
170 views
Tracking of Mir space station backwards in time?
Is there a site with the tracking information for the old space station Mir? Or some place with the data location tracking information still available? Maybe even a site with orbital mechanics ...
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How does a spacecraft such as Soyuz detect when it's on collision course with an object?
Today Roscosmos reported (in Russian, here's a machine translation into English) that the Soyuz vehicle on its way to the ISS avoided collision with a piece of Japanese rocket body, allegedly launched ...
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473 views
Autonomous Navigation for deep space missions
Autonomous navigation started in early phases of deep space exploration as a provision to achieve accuracy for planet/natural satellite targeting and approach, where radio tracking accuracies were low,...
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725 views
Why has no TLE been published for the DSCOVR satellite and the Falcon 9 R/B?
So, usually a few days after every launch, I go out and check out the published TLE data for each satellite, made public courtesy of CelesTrak. It generally includes all the orbital parameters for ...
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1answer
286 views
How can we track where DSCOVR is now?
Celestia supports importing spacecraft data, but I didn't see any data for DSCOVR. Is there any way to see where it is now so we can track it on it's way to Sun-Earth L1?
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1answer
507 views
For SpaceX's Texas launch site, what kind of range radar/tracking will they have?
The Air Force runs the range for launches out of Florida and it is aging hardware, with long reset times, radars dropping off (Like first attempt of DSCOVR, and SMAP launch).
I cannot find a ...
