COSPAR vs. NORAD - was Re:acceleration of 91-19 B
Philip Chien (kc4yer@amsat.org)
Wed, 29 Oct 1997 19:38:50 -0400
Kurt Jonckheere said:
>At 07:50 AM 10/29/97 +0000, you wrote:
>>Congratulations Leo for finding that :
>>
>>>91-19 B IS ACCELERATING !!!!
>
>>Here are the latest OIG elements :
>>
>>21153
>>1 21153U 91019B 97282.67488522 .00000080 00000-0 67018-4 0 9334
>>2 21153 82.9256 146.3371 0040295 58.9950 301.5151 13.74858988330189
>>
>>Kurt Jonckheere
>>
Ron Lee
>Thanks for the elset Kurt. I don't want to open up the COSPAR vs NORAD
>issue but in order for me to track an object, the best ID is NORAD.
>Using COSPAR only forces me to open up my large elset (8000+) and scrolling
>through to find it.
>
>Thanks for your consideration and support :)
while NORAD is certainly the better choice for sorting and 'machine
recognition', the COSPAR id is much more descriptive of the object's
identity.
In this case it's a "B" object which indicates that it's either a seocndary
payload or the rocket's upper stage.
And 19 gives a very rough estimate of when in the year the launch occured.
In addition I also like to include the actual name of the object (what
Walter would call a 'vulgar' name). The object does have a name before
it's launched, whether it's "Delta Upper Stage" or "PAGEOS". Yes objects
are often renamed when they reach orbit or if they're sold to another
company. But the *name* of an object is usually a much more descriptive
identification.
In this particular case (as I flip through my TRW Space Log) 91 19B is a
SL-8 (Cosmos) upper stage. The A object was Nadezhda-3.
And knowing that the object is a Cosmos upper stage gives me a pretty good
idea of the size of the object, and a guess at its visual characteristics.
So whenever possible I prefer to use all three.
Philip Chien [M1959.05.31/31.145//KC4YER@amsat.org]