> Who would have believed such a coincidence in which the elements for the > oldest sats 00001 and (almost) the newest sat, FORTE just happened to have > the same catalog number. To avoid confusion here, the 00001 is just an arbitrary cat # for FORTE. A real number is never assigned until an object is actually in orbit and tracked by SpaceCom. Note that international id, 99001A, is also fictional. FORTE is not the first launch of 1999. (as far as I can tell now) ^ Jay Respler -- Details of how to get on the Satellite Observer Mail List, elements, prediction programs and other satellite information, at the Visual Satellite Observers Home Page: http://www2.plasma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/sat/satintro.html -- JRespler@InJersey.com Satellite Tracker * Early Typewriter Collector Freehold, New Jersey