In a message dated 10/16/2005 12:54:22 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, leobarhorst@zonnet.nl writes: >>There was a bug on the page, it has been fixed. The tables for 2004 and 2005 can now be accessed.<< Boy, do these tables bring back memories. They're very similar to the ones I had compiled from 1958 through 1979 (although they seem to be missing the principal orbital elements--perhaps they're in a different table elsewhere on the Web site?), only now they've grown three times longer, with catalogue numbers in five digits. And we've had one launch (at least) with enough fragments in orbit to have gone around the 24-letter Roman alphabet to the third place (ie., more than 600 = 25x24 orbited objects). Great Scott! I've thought about using Excel to someday recompile my old satellite table, so it's terrific to see that someone else has actually gone to the trouble of doing so(!). I'm not terribly familiar with Excel and I wonder whether it can deal with variable-length hierarchic data records, so that, for example, one would have a "main record" for each launch, with launch-related data such as international designation, date and time, launch vehicle, and launch site, grouped with "subrecords" for each orbited object (assuming the launch succeeded) that include individual catalogue numbers, international designators, initial/earliest known orbital elements, and dates and locations of reentry, and for each object perhaps some "subsubrecords" with various orbital elements on specific dates and times, and other subsubrecords with alternative spacecraft names and synonyms, etc. I once worked with a database language called Mark IV that had this capability, and I actually managed to get most of my satellite database into Mark IV format before moving to San Diego and dropping the hobby. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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