[amsat-bb] Adding NO-84 PSAT to Gpredict

[Ray Hoad]

Alan ... Most of what I know about this comes from some of our past
conversations.  But ... When I first applied (in 2005) for our authorization
to re-distribute the KEPs (in TLE format), I had a conversation with the
then officer-in-charge of approving the TLE re-distribution authorizations
at Air Force Space Command. He said exactly what you said, "There is a
law/regulation which covers launches with military or other classified
payloads."  He did not elaborate any further and I got the feeling that he
did not what to answer further questions on that subject. I (and anyone else
who is not the owner/operator) cannot go into SpaceTrack and directly
download the TLEs from SpaceTrack for satellites launched on a military
launch vehicle.

It is obvious that the owner/operator of the satellite can obtain the
current TLEs, so for now, we get them from that entity.  It is an extra
step, but it can be done.  Once we acquire the TLEs from the owner/operator,
we are free to re-distribute as needed. 

I am sure that the owner/operator of a satellite on a military launch has a
similar agreement that AMSAT has with SpaceTrack. Once AMSAT  downloads the
TLE data from SpaceTrack and puts the TLEs in our format, it becomes AMSAT's
product. AMSAT (and anyone else that AMSAT sends it to) are free to send
that data to anyone else.  At AMSAT we do ask those re-distributing KEP data
from AMSAT to leave the headers in place, thus giving AMSAT credit as the
primary re-distributing data source.

I hope this helps.

Ray Hoad
WA5QGD

-----Original Message-----
From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On Behalf Of Alan
Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2015 2:18 PM
To: 'Stephan Greene'; 'Amsat-bb'
Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Adding NO-84 PSAT to Gpredict

Steve,

There is a law/regulation which covers launches with military or other
classified payloads.  (Somebody
have the exact reference?)  It prevents releasing the Keps in the normal way
for the secondary
payloads, so they have to come indirectly from the people who own the
individual satellites.  For
instance, you can find all the other Keps from that launch here:

http://mstl.atl.calpoly.edu/~ops/ultrasat/ultrasat_jspoc.txt

It is updated every couple of days, instead of the 3-4 times a day we are
used to.  You need to match
the actual names with the satellite and object number, or get them with the
weekly updates to
NASA.ALL. 

73s,

Alan
WA4SCA




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