Alternate sources of TLEs
Allen Thomson (thomsona@netcom.com)
Thu, 2 Jul 1998 06:53:43 -0700 (PDT)
(Sorry about all the HTML stuff in my previous message -- it was
due to an, um, operator error..)
Earl Needham asked:
>Is there someplace else to get the same type of data [TLEs]? I've been
>seeing this problem grow and grow for a week or two now.
> I know that several products are available from Russia that are not
>available from stateside sources -- sat photos of the Nevada desert, for
>instance. Although I don't know for a fact, it seems that we might find
>another source for these elsets might be found the same way.
I've sent a query about this very thing to the Coordination Scientific
Information Center of the Russian MoD
(http://www.rssi.ru/SFCSIC/csic.html, sfcsic@mx.iki.rssi.ru).
It's a long shot, but perhaps worth starting to explore.
Does any other country/entity have a functioning space surveillance
system?
Meanwhile, just to be persistently optimistic, I don't think it's
at all unlikely that SPACECOM, after going through whatever
bureaucratic evolutions may be necessary, will approve general
distribution of the elements. It may take a while, though.