Paul Henney asked about the recent satellite catalog updates of the status of the Magellan Venus probe and the Lunar Prospector to "decayed": > Some error ? > > An OIG peculiarity? Any errors or peculiarities are the responsibility of USSTRATCOM: http://oig1.gsfc.nasa.gov/scripts/foxweb.exe/app01 Relevant quotes: "The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Space Communications Program (Code 450)provides access to unclassified satellite orbital data that has been received from United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), 1st Space Control Squadron (1SPCS), and Flight Dynamics Facility (FDF). This orbital data consists of Two-Line Element (TLE) sets, Satellite Catalog Messages, Project Tip Messages, Satellite Decay Messages, Predicted Decay Forecasts, Satellite Box Scores, Satellite Reports, NASA Orbital Elements and Shuttle Vectors." also "The site is not responsible for the accuracy of the data, and does no modification on the data." > > Why are these so late? USSTRATCOM is concerned with surveillance of Earth orbit, so once an object escapes Earth orbit, and is not expected to return, it is likely to have a low priority for catalog updates. For supporting evidence, consider the appended results of a few of my random queries of the satellite catalog on OIG. Galileo supposedly still orbits the Sun, which I guess is true, but as a part of Jupiter's mass! Meanwhile, Cassini and NEAR are known to have been launched, but that's about all. Ted Molczan IntID/Name CatNo Source period Incl Apogee Perigee RCS ------------ ----- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------- -------- 1989-084B 20298 US Heliocentric orbit GALILEO Launched (1989/10/18) 1996-008A 23784 US 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0000 NEAR Launched (1996/02/17) 1997-061A 25008 US 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0000 CASSINI Launched (1997/10/15) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Aug 21 2004 - 18:07:54 EDT