I concur. I am assuming at the moment that the SpaceTrack numbering is a mistake and will be corrected - but I could be wrong. It will be at least Tuesday before we know more, and possibly longer as it will take them a while to catalog the Transporter-2 objects and the cubesat deployments from Cygnus NG-15. - Jonathan On Sun, 4 Jul 2021 at 06:18, Bob Christy via Seesat-l <seesat-l_at_satobs.org> wrote: > My record of known recent launches (in chronological order) is > Jun 29 - Progress MS-17 > Jun 30 - LauncherOne satellite cluster > Jun 30 - SpaceX Transporter 2 mission > Jul 1 - OneWeb cluster > Jul 3 - Jilin cluster > > The first two appear in the SpaceTrack Catalogue under the 2021-057 and > 2021-058 designations. > > The SpaceX Transporter satellites are not yet catalogued and no orbital > elements have yet been listed to date. It seemed reasonable to assume it > will be catalogued as 2021-059 but, based on what follows below, it could > be 2021-060 > > On July 3, the OneWeb launch was added to the catalogue as 2021-061 and > Jilin as 2021-062. > > On the face of it, we are missing 2021-060 or 2021-059. > > Three possibilities arise: > 1 - an error in the catalogue, > 2 - a clandestine orbital launch that has gone unannounced, unnoticed by > space chroniclers, and not been formally acknowledged through SpaceTrack, > 3 - a sub-orbital or failed orbital launch has thrown some debris into LEO > that has been given an unpublished catalogue number but without any orbital > element sets being issued through SpaceTrack. > > Option 1 is possible and is the most likely explanation, > > Option 2 is unlikely, something would surely have leaked through news > channels by now. > > Option 3 is possible but then candidates have to be identified unless > SpaceTrack or its masters make some announcement. > > In the meantime, as Russell says, it doesn't help with reporting > observations but that isn't something I'm qualified to comment on. > > The catalogue is a 'dangerous' place, to use Russell's description. > Changes are chronicled by SpaceTrack but details are among the less obvious > data on the Space-Track website. Historical research is fraught with such > obstacles. > > A recent example is the 2021-014 Yaogan 31 triplet. More than one week > after launch, following release of many element sets, objects 'A' and 'B' > were switched round. The possible reason is that object 'A' from a launch > is not permitted to be a debris item. > > Robert Christy > > > On 4 Jul 2021, at 09:01, Russell Eberst via Seesat-l < > seesat-l_at_satobs.org> wrote: > > There seems to be a dangerous discrepancy evolving over designations. > > In recent launches, the designations used vary according to which source > is accessed. > > The OneWeb launch of July 1 (inc = 87°.4) is called 2021-60xx by > Jonathan and Bob, > > It's called 2021-61xx by spacetrack and celestrak. > > The next launch, Jilin (inc = 97°.5) is called 2021-61xx by Jon and Bob, > and called > > 2021-62xx by spacetrack and celestrak. > > This disparity needs to be addressed before many more launches continue > this divergence. > > I would like to know which designations should be used when reporting > observations of > > these and upcoming satellites? > > best wishes > > Russell > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Seesat-l mailing list > > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Seesat-l mailing list > http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-l > _______________________________________________ Seesat-l mailing list http://mailman.satobs.org/mailman/listinfo/seesat-lReceived on Sun Jul 04 2021 - 10:12:37 UTC
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