8
votes
Accepted
Is TESS really lost? What does Celestrak mean exactly?
You're right; these objects aren't lost. However, Space-Track doesn't actually track a lot of higher-orbiting objects. They just don't seem particularly interested in anything with a multi-day ...
- 1,013
6
votes
What is/was legacy TLE ephemeris type 2? (TLE, line 1, column 63)
This has to do with ambiguities in the definitions used for certain terms, and software doing strange contortions to avoid breaking backwards compatibility. The USAF's family of Simplified General ...
- 7,778
5
votes
Accepted
What is "OBJECT BS"?
Answering almost a year later...
This was a particularly hard launch for JSPOC to track. The systems, processes, databases, etc are not well set up for a launch with a hundred+ objects.
It looks ...
- 4,444
4
votes
What is/was legacy TLE ephemeris type 2? (TLE, line 1, column 63)
I find Ryan C's answer interesting... but I've never actually interpreted the documentation that way. It's difficult to be certain, since all official TLEs have had ephem type 0. But I (and others ...
- 1,013
4
votes
Python - Beyond Orbit raises TleParseError for valid TLE
It appears that beyond python package considers a TLE that has a zero in character 3 of line 1 in the TLE to be an invalid TLE.
According to the beyond package, ...
- 5,420
3
votes
Is the United Nations Outer Space Objects Index anything more than a clone of the Celestrak's Satcat? Is it even that, or less?
The answer is "no" because that is not its purpose.
The role of the UN list is a place for the launching states to register those details they are obliged to do so by international treaty. ...
- 9,414
3
votes
Is the United Nations Outer Space Objects Index anything more than a clone of the Celestrak's Satcat? Is it even that, or less?
It seems to be considerably less. That is, they don't seem to have any sensors of their own -- they just wait for other people to report what they launched, and don't appear to seek regular updates.
...
- 7,778
1
vote
Accepted
Why is the NORAD Catalog number of SpaceX's Starlink's "Darksat" both 71130 and 44972?
As I mentioned in a comment, without source at the time...
SATCAT numbers 70000-99999 (70'000s, 80'000s, and 90'000s) are "analyst objects". This article from The Space Review indicates that these ...
- 1,003
1
vote
Why is the NORAD Catalog number of SpaceX's Starlink's "Darksat" both 71130 and 44972?
I can't answer you fully why Celestrak is wrong, but the correct number is 44972. It seems like this was updated in the other source.
New objects are around 45000 right now, they shouldn't be much ...
- 121k
1
vote
Accepted
Why Celestrak has Archived TLEs for most space stations from Russia and the US, but not Tiangong-1, Tiangong-2 or Skylab?
@RussellBorogove's comment is fairly conclusive.
...I note that Celestrak was established in 1985, at which point Salyut 7 was up, but Skylab was not. The Archived TLE data page says 1980-2004, but ...
- 149k
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