[Server-sky] Anybody want to process the NORAD two-line elements into potential server-sky colliders?

[Keith Lofstrom]

I am currently building the wiki page http://www.server-sky.com/EarthOrbits
There is a programming challenge on that page, with a few useful
pointers.

1) Sign up for a registered account at http://www.space-track.org/
This gives access to the NORAD database of 70 million two line
elements, which describes the orbits of the satellites and space
debris they are currently tracking.

2) Starting with the simple FORTRAN program for the SGP4 orbit
model at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-line_elements
write a C or Perl program to find the radius of the ascending
and descending nodes for every tracked object up there. 

3) Make a histogram of object density versus radius.  If you can
manipulate the data into a list of node radii, I can write a bit
more code to bin it, then plot it with gnuplot.

4) Find any orbits that pass through the fully-populated server
sky region, a 500 km radius circle around the 12789 kilometer
radius orbit of m288 .  That extends above and below the orbital
plane by 2.4 degrees.

I think you will find that 99.9% or more of the debris has apogees
below 12789km, and is not worth worrying about.  But it would be
nice to show that, since the question keeps arising.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs