Re: Orbital element archives, AMPTE

Josh Williams (sponge@nebula.net)
Mon, 19 Feb 1996 19:07:18 -0500 (EST)

Allen,

Dave Ransom puts out a disk (CD-ROM), if you call his BBS or write him 
mail I am sure hge could get you some info on the TLE archive CD..

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        Josh R. Williams                 ** JRW Satellite Page **      
    E-Mail: sponge@nebula.net       URL: http://www.nebula.net/~sponge/
         ---------------------------------------------------------
         Latitude: 41 deg 59' 29" N -- Longitude: 83 deg 27' 41" W         

On Mon, 19 Feb 1996, Allen Thomson wrote:

> Bart De Pontieu said:
> 
> >A friend of mine is working on data obtained by the IRM-1 satellite, which
> >was part of the AMPTE-project. IRM-1 was built at our institute (MPE) and
> >she told me IRM-1 had burnt up in the atmosphere. But in the last Satellite
> >Situation Report I found this entry:
> 
> >15200 84-088B  IRM 1 (AMPTE)         FRG  2653.1  27.0 13808   402
> 
> >The original orbit was one with an apogee of 120000 km and apogee of 560
> >km.
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >Maybe it *did* decay without Spacecom knowing about it, since 
> >they don't track it frequently ?? 
> 
> >I could check this if I had access to older SSR's, but they do not seem to
> >be available electronically before 1993/1994? Can anyone confirm this ?
> 
> >More generally, I think it would be really interesting to have an archive
> >of old elements of satellites available electronically. Old elements are very 
> >useful for research purposes, and I presume Spacecom has them stored
> >somewhere.  Maybe someone who has influence with Spacecom could persuade
> >them to make old elements available ? 
> 
> >Maybe Spacecom or OIG are already working on this ?
> 
> >Anyone know ?
> 
> 
>    This is weird, even for Spacecom, which isn't known for rigor in 
> its maintenance of orbital elements (I blush for my country ;) ).  Here 
> is the "last five" download for 1984 88B from NASA Goddard, done today, 
> 19 Feb 1996:
> 
> Element set number = 1
> 1 15200U 84088B   85165.07498243 -.00000353 +00000-0 +10000-3 0 05776
> 2 15200 027.0326 344.5409 8932020 038.8095 018.6999 00.54276908001640
> Element set number = 2
> 1 15200U 84 88  B 85165.07494771 -.00000323  00000-0  99999-4 0  1709
> 2 15200  27.0326 344.5409 8932020  38.8095  18.6999  0.54276908  1640
> Element set number = 3
> 1 15200U 84 88  B 95165.07498243 -.00000323  00000 0  99999-4    5778  <-- !
> 2 15200  27.0326 344.5408 8932020  38.8095  18.6999  0.54276909  1640
> Element set number = 4
> 1 15200U 84088B   85165.07493614 -.00000428  00000-0  10000-3 0  3640
> 2 15200  27.0326 344.5409 8932020  38.8095  18.6999  0.54276908  1640
> Element set number = 5
> 1 15200U 84 88  B 85165.07495928 -.00000327  00000-0  00000+0 0   347
> 2 15200  27.0326 344.5409 8932020  38.8095  18.6999  0.54276908  1640
> 
> 
>    Objects in such highly elliptical orbits typically 
> experience strong lunar/solar perturbations which cause the 
> perigee to fluctuate significantly.  I'd guess IRM is long dead, 
> despite the "95165" epoch in the third element set.
> 
>    As for historical data sets, it would be nice if Spacecom or 
> NASA would issue a CD ROM archive, but I know of no serious 
> effort to do so.  The total volume of data isn't particularly 
> daunting: a ludicrous upper bound (LUB) can be estimated by 
> assuming that 1e4 objects have been tracked once per day since 
> 1958, generating one 140 byte element set per object per day: 
> 1e4*1.4e2*3.65e2*3.8e1 ~= 19 gigabytes.  Compress this with 
> pkzip or similar to get ~7.5 Gbytes:  a dozen current CD ROMs, 
> one or two of the new generation (I don't remember what they're 
> called).  In reality, I'm sure the amount of data is less than a 
> quarter, quite possibly less than a tenth of this LUB estimate. 
> 
>    One possibility for justifying a request for blanket release 
> of the element sets could be that time-series analyses of 
> satellite orbits can be used to monitor the upper atmosphere.  
> Global change studies might find this sort of information 
> useful.  (Now that I've said that, the name "Al Gore" comes to 
> mind -- the US VP has pushed in the past to have other Cold War 
> data released for scientific use, and might do so in this case.) 
> 
>    Short of the Vice President, Prof. Tom Kelso 
> (tkelso@afit.af.mil) of the Air University at Maxwell AFB in 
> Alabama is the person who seems best able to divine what is and 
> isn't possible at Spacecom, so I'd suggest asking him about a 
> Grand Archive project. 
> 
>    Finally, It might be worthwhile to ask the Russian Space 
> Forces about their orbital element archives -- they have a home 
> page linked to IKI's. 
> 
>