An open invitation to the list to assist in jogging this not so young man's memory... a bit of nostalgic research I'm doing. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
Back what I used to call "not so many" years ago, maybe 1980-1985, I recall NASA mailing me 2-line elements for specific satellites I had selected. These would come in an official manilla envelope with an extremely official looking NASA label affixed to it. I recall these would arrive in my mailbox every week or so. Later they dwindled to perhaps one per month.
At some point, they just stopped mailing them to me. Perhaps I had missed a reminder to update my subscription info. I'm assuming more than likely the free service just became redundant, as BBS systems, and later internet services began providing them online for free. Not to mention the Oscar data provided in the AMSAT Journal.
An aside - you can skip this paragraph if you want me to cut to the quick - I was living in an apartment with my then new, now ex, wife. We were the only young couple in the complex. The ladies sitting in the breezeway thought we were gov'mt spies receiving coded instructions. They always kept one eye on us as we unlocked our mail slot, and pulled out one of these covert communiques. One accidentally was placed in another mail slot once. The nice elderly woman who lived below us returned it to me as I came home from work. She said, "I think you'll be needing this." Handed it to me, and hurried back into her apartment. I tucked it under my coat, and went upstairs - I knew there were eyes peering out behind every door. I can't say that I tried to dispell the myth. My apologies, Ms. Maxine, in Apt 303... God rest her soul.
Question(s): * Which NASA office did these originate from? * When did this service begin/end? * Could requests be made for any unclassified object in orbit, as long as the designator was known?
For your eyes only, (ssshhh...)
Rich, N8UX
----- Original Message ----- From: "Rich Dailey (Gmail)" redailey1@gmail.com To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 10:18 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] NASA 2 Line via mail?
Back what I used to call "not so many" years ago, maybe 1980-1985, I
recall NASA
mailing me 2-line elements for specific satellites I had selected. These
would come in an
official manilla envelope with an extremely official looking NASA label
affixed to it. I recall
these would arrive in my mailbox every week or so. Later they dwindled to
perhaps one per month.
At some point, they just stopped mailing them to me. Perhaps I had missed
a reminder to update
my subscription info. I'm assuming more than likely the free service just
became redundant, as BBS systems,
and later internet services began providing them online for free. Not to
mention the Oscar data provided
in the AMSAT Journal. Question(s):
- Which NASA office did these originate from?
- When did this service begin/end?
- Could requests be made for any unclassified object in orbit, as long as
the designator was known?
For your eyes only, (ssshhh...)
Rich, N8UX
Hi Rich, N8UX
Early 1975 and up to 1985 I was receiving as well the keplerian elements by regular post from NASA but actually things are changed with a more fast distribution on internet.
You can dowload the 2 line NASA keplerian elements for all satellite you need from the following site.
Only for the amateur satellites here
http://celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/amateur.txt
If you need the amateur satellites keplerian elements sent by email to your address you can subscribe at no cost to the folloving AMSAT direction.
http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/keps
73" de
i8CVS Domenico
Domenico
Yes, what you say is true.
But that is not what Rich asked in his email.
He asked this: * Which NASA office did these originate from? * When did this service begin/end? * Could requests be made for any unclassified object in orbit, as long as the designator was known?
I am sure Rich knows where he can find keps now. That wasn't what he wanted to know.
I thought it was an interesting story.
Sil ZL2CIA
At 04:18 AM 11/24/2009 -0500, "Rich Dailey (Gmail)" redailey1@gmail.com wrote:
An open invitation to the list to assist in jogging this not so young man's memory... a bit of nostalgic research I'm doing. Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
Back what I used to call "not so many" years ago, maybe 1980-1985, I recall NASA mailing me 2-line elements for specific satellites I had selected. These would come in an official manilla envelope with an extremely official looking NASA label affixed to it. I recall these would arrive in my mailbox every week or so. Later they dwindled to perhaps one per month.
At some point, they just stopped mailing them to me. Perhaps I had missed a reminder to update my subscription info. I'm assuming more than likely the free service just became redundant, as BBS systems, and later internet services began providing them online for free. Not to mention the Oscar data provided in the AMSAT Journal.
An aside - you can skip this paragraph if you want me to cut to the quick
- I was living
in an apartment with my then new, now ex, wife. We were the only young couple in the complex. The ladies sitting in the breezeway thought we were gov'mt spies receiving coded instructions. They always kept one eye on us as we unlocked our mail slot, and pulled out one of these covert communiques. One accidentally was placed in another mail slot once. The nice elderly woman who lived below us returned it to me as I came home from work. She said, "I think you'll be needing this." Handed it to me, and hurried back into her apartment. I tucked it under my coat, and went upstairs - I knew there were eyes peering out behind every door. I can't say that I tried to dispell the myth. My apologies, Ms. Maxine, in Apt 303... God rest her soul.
Question(s):
- Which NASA office did these originate from?
- When did this service begin/end?
- Could requests be made for any unclassified object in orbit, as long as
the designator was known?
For your eyes only, (ssshhh...)
Rich, N8UX
Hi Rich,
I used to get the two line elements sets mailed to me too, and then I would type them into my tracking program manually.*ugly*
They were mailed from GSFC. I don't know if they still do mail outs.
When I was able to get them off the internet I had them stop sending me them by snail mail.
Get on the AMSAT Keps list and you can get them by email.
KB7ADL
Subscribe to Space-track and you can select which of 14K or so keps you want.
Vince Fiscus, KB7ADL wrote:
Get on the AMSAT Keps list and you can get them by email.
Thanks to all who provided the info on the GSFC 2 line elements that I used to receive in my mailbox every few days.
I currently update all my software through the satellite element update feature within satpc. I download the keps, and run a little script that updates my other tracking programs (and as we all know, one can't have too many tracking programs!).
I recall now that I used the GSFC mailings for Amateur, as well as weather satellites for APT reception. I remember that I was pretty familiar with the interpretation of the 2-line format, and could type them in fairly quick. Don't ask me to repeat this feat today! Was it tedious? I guess you could say yes, but remember that feeling you had when you loaded, then ran a tracking program on your home computer for the first time - that computer being a Sinclair, trs-80, coco, VIC, C-64, Apple II, Osbourne (insert your favorite here)? Remember the elation of printing out, sometimes in the matter of just a few minutes, batch prediction output for the whole week? Oscarlocator was a fine method that worked well for us, but Wow! A home computer in my shack! Then we sat and imagined a day when we could get our computers to aim our antennas, and compensate for doppler.
Thanks to all who filled in the details on my little digression down memory lane. I'm sure there are those of you on the list who's lane goes down much farther than mine, and I'd like to hear the stories. Thanks!
Rich, N8UX
participants (5)
-
i8cvs -
Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF -
Rich Dailey (Gmail) -
Sil - ZL2CIA -
Vince Fiscus, KB7ADL