Celestia Forums

I once thought that I saw an add-on for Celestia with several of the satellites which are tracked in the NORAD database. Does anyone know if such an add-on exists and if so where I can find it?
Thanks,
pm

I think I may have answered my own question by stumbling across this web site http://members.fortunecity.com/guilpain/Download_uk.htm I figured I would post it for anyone else who may be interested in this.
Phil

Sure glad I installed a popup blocker! It sounded like a Starwars laser fight when I opened and closed that page <frown>.

I had no idea there were that many satellites in orbit above our heads! WOW!

Thanks for the link pm.

-Don G.

Don,

Do you use http://www.heavens-above.com ? Once you've seen 4 Iridium flares in 30 minutes, and the ISS 15 minutes after that, you get some idea of the number of satellites there are up there!

Howdy Jack,

Thanks for the link. No I don't use that site. I've seen a couple like it, but have never gotten into looking for the birds at night. My eyes aren't that good <frown>.

-Don G.

FYI, as of the current Satellite Boxscore (12/8/03) there are 9231 objects in orbit in the NORAD database. Of those, 2947 are payloads, and 6284 (68%!!!!) are orbital debris.

I've been working for several weeks on a SSC that'll list ALL of the objects in the NORAD database, and generate it in such a way that producing updated versions from the current TLEs will be fairly easy.

I'll probably make it two files, one for payloads and one for debris.

Howdy revent,

Thanks for the numbers, and for your effort to create a Celestia SSC file of it all. Wow, that truly is amazing -- especially the "debris" numbers <frown>.

If I remember correctly, they only track objects the size of a baseball or softball and up, right? In other words, they don't track bolts, nuts and other "small", but nonetheless LETHAL debris.

-Don G.

Well, they track everything they can that's worth tracking. Object 16013 is a screwdriver that was dropped during an eva on STS 51.

The problem is that as altitude increases they can only see larger objects, but the smaller objects they can see at lower altitudes are in less stable orbits. So, they essentially track everything that USSPACECOM sees more than some certain number of times.

With all that debris up there, it sounds like we need to create a new Earth Orbit Sanitation Dept, training center, and space ship/compactor <frown>.

Now THERE is an idea for a good space game <laughing>!