trappistplanets wrote:i never even heard of this probe, there are so many probes orbiting earth right now i don't know abouttoutatis wrote:"Astérix or A-1 (initially conceptualized as FR.2 or FR-2) is the first French satellite. It was launched on 26 November 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, Algeria. With Astérix, France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite and the third country to launch a satellite on its own rocket. Its main purpose was to test the Diamant launcher, though it was also designed to study the ionosphere. Astérix orbits Earth as of December 2020 and is expected to do so for centuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astérix_(satellite)
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nice!
I was 13 when Asterix was launched. I remember it and I was already passionate about it.
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Added after 6 minutes 41 seconds:
DaveBowman2001 wrote:Post #1580by DaveBowman2001 » Today, 05:27
trappistplanets wrote:
i never even heard of this probe, there are so many probes orbiting earth right now i don't know about
There are over ~5,000 spacecraft in total around Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System, with about ~3,000 in active service, mostly geostationary comsats, cubesats, and Starlink satellites. The 5,000 figure includes ones that have been deorbited and derelict in orbit, as well as landers, rovers, and others
that's a lot of tons of material that left the planet. The Earth is lighter!
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Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
after Galileo System (ESA) NAVSTAR GPS (USA) GLONASS (Russia) here are the GNSS systems:
Michibiki (Japan)
Beidou (China)
INRSS (India)
I don't have specific 3D models so I am using satgeneric.cmod
Orbital data comes from the Celestrack site. As usual, each satellite definition includes the 'Visible false' line for use with Lut5's Vidiba module. If this is not your case, you must override the parameter by commenting it out (#Visible false).