Re: Sorting satellite elements

Bjoern Gimle (b_gimle@algonet.se)
Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:58:41 +0200 (MET DST)

David Bishop wrote:
>>>  One thing that I need is a good satellite elements digester....
>>1)  Read a free formatted file with elements in it, and pars them out
>>2)  Save only the most current elements to a file with JUST elements in it.
>>3)  Disregard elements which are over X months old
>>4)  Sort the elements in the output file by NORAD #
>>5)  Recognize Ted Molczan's element files, keeps the identifier line
>>6)  Check QUICKSAT.MAG, if there is no entry for it, and .. add it.
>>7)  Fix any checksum errors it finds.
>>If anybody has something better I am all ears.
>
I need one more step, and definitely one less ! If there is a checksum
error, I certainly don't want to sweep it under the carpet ! More often
than not (unless it is an amateur generated elset) an error is caused
my a discrepancy at another place in the elset, so these should be
written to a separate file for scrutiny, before being trusted.

And I don't want to throw away any elsets - they can be needed for
for analysis of photographs, observations by others, and decays /
maneouvres / sudden accelerations. All old elsets (preferrably
without duplicates) should be written to a history file.

I will write a utility for this, using CA-Realizer for Windows.

CA-Realizer programs can be written for royalty-free distribution,
yet to allow run-time additions and modifications of source code,
and there is a separate text-book for users that can't (or won't)
buy the development package.

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