Here is something I would like: a list of (unclassified) objects whose orbital elements have a short "half-life". That is, a list that includes objects with high drag, or which are subject to significant maneuvers, or which are for some other possible reason(s) unstable or unreliable over more than a day or two or three. For most objects in orbit, the orbits are quite stable over week or two or even three, and I sure do not need nor want to download those from Spacetrack every single day. I would much prefer to download only a selected list of elements that I really need to get every day and the full catalog only every week or so, more or less. Not being an orbital analyst, I don't have the skill or the software to rapidly and reliably and make up such a list myself. What I have been doing for a very long time, when I have had the time, is running predictions, finding those with the highest uncertainties, compiling a nightly list that way, and then querying Spacetrack for those objects, and then running predictions with the updated elements. Obviously, it would be a lot easier for me if there were a ready-made list of such objects. (There used to be one along those lines, more or less, called "highdrag.tle".) I would like the list to be given in the five-digit catalog numbers, so that I can submit it directly to Spacetrack "as is". I understand that making up such a list is a matter of some work for some person or persons, and so really this is a "wish list" type of thing more than a request. I mentioned "(unclassified)" above because, of course, all of our elements for classified objects come from people like Mike McCants and Ted Molczan who are willing to spend the time and effort to observe them and/or take observations from other people (too numerous to mention at the moment), analyze them, and produce elements that they freely distribute to everyone. I don't know how many people know that besides providing elements of two to three hundred classified objects now, Mike frequently observes and does his own positional measurements for dozens if not scores of classified objects, as well as serving as a clearing-house for the hundreds of positional observations taken by other people for classified objects. It's a lot of work which Mike has shared freely with us for years. I know that Ted does similar work as well as administering this list, and so I guess this is a way that I want to say thank you to them and to all of the positional observers as well, since I'm not one. Recently information on something like 140 additional classified objects in near-geosynchronous orbits has been added, and I hope that everyone understands how much additional work that means for Mike and the others who are observing and analyzing the data on those objects. Clear, dark nights to all -- Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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