Historical elsets

Allen Thomson (thomsona@netcom.com)
Mon, 10 Nov 1997 17:21:38 -0800 (PST)

   GSFC OIG has started making historical element sets available, and 
I've just received my first batch.  The initial request was for objects 
which are of historical interest and/or are simple spheres which should 
be useful as reference objects when studying the long-term orbital 
behavior of satellites (plus a couple which are of particular interest 
to me personally). 

   At the moment, my archives contain elsets going back into the early 
'80s and before for the objects in the following table.  I would like to 
distribute these data around the Net to make them generally available 
and to protect against loss.  If anyone running a generally available 
archive would like copies, give me an e-mail or postal address and 
they'll be sent. 

NORAD     Number of      Epoch of       Epoch of     Object
           elsets       first elset    last elset

00005U     4840          59143.01       97310.59    Vanguard 1
00011U     5789          59135.88       97311.14    Vanguard 2
00900U     4921          64291.86       97311.26    Calsphere 1 
01520U     4186          66003.78       97311.15    Calsphere 4(A) 14 
                                                    inch, 2 kg white sphere
02825U     4441          67151.58       97311.03    20 inch, 2.4 kg
Calsphere
02874U     4695          67193.25       97311.03    Calsphere
02909U     6262          67215.66       97311.22    Surcal 150 B 16 inch, 
                                                    1.5 kg sphere
05398U     5762          71219.68       97311.07    Rigid Sphere 2, 37 kg
10967U     4544          78179.42       97311.20    Seasat 1
15333U     4893          84274.19       97311.51    Cosmos 1603
                                        

   Note that the information on the geometry and mass of the spheres
comes from sources of uncertain reliability, and could be significantly
in error.  Better data on these satellites would be very welcome.