On 01/22/21 09:16, Andrew Koenig wrote:

Have there been any signs of life from Fox-1E?

Ray Hoad sent out a TLE notice yesterday evening:

The following are unidentified satellites that have been added to this week's AMSAT-NA TLE Distribution: OBJECT B - Cat ID 47310 OBJECT C - Cat ID 47311 OBJECT D - Cat ID 47312 OBJECT E - Cat ID 47313 OBJECT G - Cat ID 47315 OBJECT J - Cat ID 47317 OBJECT K - Cat ID 47318 OBJECT M - Cat ID 47320 Alan Biddle, WA4SCA, notes that the unidentified OBJECTS C, D, and M are in the center of the pack and are good candidates for being RadFxSat-2.

SatNOGS thinks it is NORAD ID 99758:

https://db.satnogs.org/satellite/99758

However, there are no "Good" observations in the database. Here's an example of the silence heard by EA5WA:

https://network.satnogs.org/observations/3508412/

For comparison, here's the reception of CAPE-3 from that same station:

https://network.satnogs.org/observations/3498824/

FOX-1E (RadFxSat-2) has not been heard by the AMSAT community at large, either:

https://www.amsat.org/status/

I suspect the operations team is trying it's hardest to figure out what's going on, and I'd expect another update any time now.

P.S. SatNOGS is awesome! I really need to get my station operational.

--- Zach N0ZGO

Of course you can use your own internal numbering system, but you need to make sure you use a well maintained cross-reference list to link your numbers to the 'official' Catalog Numbers.

But there are other matters to consider.

Catalog Numbers from 80000 to 99999 (or even 70000 to 99999) will not be assigned to new objects by 18 SPCS because these numbers are already in use for other purposes. And since a new, more sensitive radar is in use, many smaller objects are now detected. As a result 18 SPCS will run out of available Catalog Numbers before long.

The chosen solution is to switch from 5 digit Catalog Numbers to 9 digit Catalog Numbers. That means that the classic Two Line Element format cannot be used anymore. Therefore a couple of new formats are being made available now, including XML, KVN, JSON, JSON PP and CSV.

For further information see this page: http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/documentation/gp-data-formats.php

Authors of satellite tracking programs and other users of orbital parameters are urged to update their programs so that they can use at least one of the new available formats.

You can already download orbital parameters in the new formats from Space-Track.org and CelesTrak.com now. See e.g. this page: http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/elements/gp-index.php

For the time being orbital parameters will still be available in the TLE (2le/3le) format. But it is inevitable that the TLE format will be abandoned when no more free 5 digit Catalog Numbers are available anymore.

73, Nico PA0DLO

On 22-01-2021 22:35, Corey Shields wrote:

On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 12:37 PM Zach Metzinger <zmetzing@pobox.com mailto:zmetzing@pobox.com> wrote:

SatNOGS thinks it is NORAD ID 99758:

https://db.satnogs.org/satellite/99758

99xxx is what we have been assigning to a new satellite in SatNOGS before it has a proper NORAD ID or we otherwise identify it as one of the tracked OBJECTs after launch. It will be changed to one of the 473xx IDs in SatNOGS once identified.

Its a hack for a problem not quite anticipated when the initial apps were designed to use NORAD ID as the primary identifier: being that there's a lag between launch and identification whereas we want to use the information and schedule observations right away. It is also a hack that does not scale as we will trip over ourselves when NORAD IDs hit the 99000's.

From a data perspective there are some other challenges in normalizing on NORAD as a primary identifier in SatNOGS as well, as the association is with a singular object in orbit where we'd like to broaden the information to include pre-launch objects, and organizing data around individual components or satellites that start off as one only becomes feasible once they've separated (ie: prox-1/lightsail-2) and we risk certain items of historical data being lost when combined (all things ISS). So with that we've tossed around the idea of Yet Another Identifier that we'll likely implement early this year. Forum thread with the details, ideas, and gitlab issue is here (and we welcome input from others): https://community.libre.space/t/unique-satellite-identifier-definition-in-sa... The intent is not to create another identifier to confuse the world with, but internally we need to shift away from NORAD as _the_ primary identifier. If it is of any benefit to use externally, that's welcome, but not the driver.

anyway, that's a bit of the sausage-making.

P.S. SatNOGS is awesome! I really need to get my station operational.

:)

We always need more stations, programmers, and enthusiasts! Find us in the forums linked above, or on Matrix chat in #satnogs:matrix.org http://matrix.org

-- Corey Shields

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