Earth Satellites for Asteroid Hunters

Earth Satellites for Asteroid Hunters

This is a list of the catalogue numbers of objects could be confused with Very Fast Moving Objects or VFMOs

879 2770 3138 6796 7629 10722 13901 14248 14899 15166 15808 16849 19557 20413 20649 20816 21654 22309

23641 23715 23716 23802 23944 25867 25869 25989 25990 26072 26090 26113 26115 26370 26390 26410 26411

26463 26464 26483 26486 26609 26626 26629 27540 27542 27616 28140 28141 28382 28448 28500

I chose the satellites to be included from a combination of working payloads in eccentric or high orbits and their associated junk, and objects which I or others have been asked to identify. As new scientific payloads are launched or rediscovered, likely new objects are added.

Accurate positions for Chandra , INTEGRAL and other satellites/spacecraft can be obtained from the HORIZON system at JPL.

Ephemerides in a format similar to those the MPC provides for asteroids can be obtained for WIND, IMP-8 ,WMAP Vela 5/6 rocket , SOHO,ACE, Spitzer, on a MPC web page at SpaceJunk

Using the Two Line Elements.

Bill Gray of project-pluto has written a program for MS-DOS called SAT_ID which examine a list of observations in the 80 column format required for asteroid reporting to the MPC. It requires a current file of potential targets. An MS-DOS binary and the source code can be found at sat_id . There are I believe DOS emulators for most Linux and UNIX systems. Be warned that the orbit model behind the TLE format was never really designed for satellites whose periods were appreciably longer than a day, so current elements should be used. The two quite separate sources of TLEs are www.space-track.org *and the satellites tracked by amateur satellite observers.#

By combining both files, or by running sat_id against both you will cover the largest possible set of satellites in Earth orbit.

*Any person who wants satellite elements from the US government has to register with www.space-track.org. You are forbidden to pass any elements to others, or to pass on information derived by analysing the elements to a third party without the approval of the US secretary of State for Defence.

#These elements come from the observations and analysis of amateur observers, so are not subject to US government regulation.

Note that objects for which a connection with a launch has not been made, the catalog number is assigned a number in the sequence starting at 90000, and the International ID is related to a constant plus the Day of year of initial observation. This is a convention established among the amateur observers and analysts.