RE: TLE file maintenance

Kulbinder Kalirai (KKalirai@smtp.esiusa.com)
Wed, 23 Aug 95 14:35:00 PDT

On  Wednesday, August 23, 1995,  John Alsobrook  wrote:

>I routinely download 4 TLE files, NEW_MOLC.TLE, TLENEW.TLE, VISUAL.TLE,
>and OTHER.TLE.  I use UNIX2DOS to convert each of the 4 files, then
>PASSUPDT.EXE to update 8 separate TLE files which I then use for pass
>predictions.
>
>For example, for VISUAL.TLE, I maintain a VIS-NO.TLE file, which has
>all of the satellites which I have never seen, and a VIS-YES.TLE file,
>which has the satellites that I have observed in the past.
>
I> use multiple control files in QuickSat.  When I specify NO.CTL
>at the prompt, QuickSat does pass predictions using all 4 of the
>"NO" TLE files, resulting in one time-sorted observing list of
>satellites which I have not yet observed.
>
>This works, but it is time consuming to maintain.  After an observing
>session, I have to use a text editor to cut a satellite from a "NO"
>TLE file and paste it into the corresponding "YES" TLE file.
>
>Does anyone know of any TLE maintenance software that would make this
>task easier?  Or, maybe there's some entirely different way of doing
>all of this that would be simplier and faster.  I'd appreciate any tips
>anyone has to offer.

I can help you with part of the problem. I also routinely download those TLE 
files and I use my own program TLEMOP to process them. With TLEMOP I 
maintain a "master" TLE file that I first update with the new TLE files. I 
can then "freshen" elements in my "visual" TLE file using the updated 
 "master" TLE file.

A few nice things about using TLEMOP is that it can handle files in DOS or 
UNIX formats (CR/LF and CR record seperators) automatically. (I was smirking 
to myself while I was receiving SEESAT-L E-mails on the subject a few days 
ago!!!, but had not released it at that time). Also, there is no limit to 
the number of elements in the "master" file.

One feature I very recently added is the ability to search any old text file 
for elements. I use this mode to extract the elements out of the 
NEW_MOLC.TLE file, processed every "SEESAT-L E-mail message I ever received 
to extract elements and got elements out of the RAID3.DAT (or was it 
RAID4.DAT) files !!!

You can find TLEMOP on RPV BBS in the TLEMOP1V.ZIP file and maybe at 
ftp.archive.afit.af.mil in the /pub/space directory ("maybe" because I 
uploaded it just today). Please see the TLEMOP.DOC file for full details and 
see the run examples in MOP.BAT to see if it can make your TLE life easier.

kkalirai@esiusa.com