I must admit that I always thought it odd that the US Government provided a free service such as this to foreigners over the internet. I would be sorry to see OIG go, but then with the axe hovering over them it might explain why their cataloguing was becoming so shoddy of late. It seems to me that the key questions for satellite observers are these. Is the USAF (or its contractor, eg Lockheed Martin or Boeing) likely to continue to issue elsets and other notices to hobbyists? And would they make a better job of cataloguing satellites than the civil servants of NASA? I can see the hobby taking a big step back in the sense that most casual satellite watchers will miss out on the easy sats like the ISS if that information is not put into the public domain. Then it would be up to the hard core of See-saters to keep track of a restricted list of interesting objects. Bruce MacDonald Devizes, UK 51.3440 N 1.9849 W 125m (WGS84) Ted Molczan wrote: > The USAF's move to take over responsibility for the dissemination of orbital > data from NASA/OIG, has become law. I have appended the text of the enabling > legislation. > > I have heard that the USAF's system will be in place by 2004 May 1, delivered > through a civilian sub-contractor. NASA/OIG would continue to operate as a > backup, for about 6-12 months, but it is not clear whether or not it will remain > accessible once the USAF's system begins operation. > > I believe that it is likely that the new service will greatly reduce access to > data by the general public, but details have yet to emerge. > > I believe that hobbyist technology can be improved to enable us to track and > maintain the orbits of a significant portion of payloads, rocket-bodies and > large debris - if we choose to do so. > > Ted Molczan ----------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from SeeSat-L, send a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@satobs.org List archived at http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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