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Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93273]

Thu, 26 May 2016 07:39

natha
Messages: 482
Registered: October 2007

Senior Member

Hi all,

Does anybody have a routine to compute a satellite orbit from the Two-line element set (TLE) ?

It would be amazing to have something like http://pyorbital.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ under IDL

Thank you in advance for your help,
nata

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93274 is a reply to message #93273]

Fri, 27 May 2016 04:34

Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997

Senior Member

This can be done with the SPICE Toolkit from the NAIF node of the NASA PDS. However, the procedure is not straight forward and instructions are beyond the effort I can provide here. The website is http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/.

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 at 10:39:22 AM UTC-4, nata wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anybody have a routine to compute a satellite orbit from the Two-line element set (TLE) ?
>
> It would be amazing to have something like http://pyorbital.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ under IDL
>
> Thank you in advance for your help,
> nata

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93275 is a reply to message #93273]

Fri, 27 May 2016 13:19

lecacheux.alain
Messages: 325
Registered: January 2008

Senior Member

Le jeudi 26 mai 2016 16:39:22 UTC+2, nata a écrit :
> Hi all,
>
> Does anybody have a routine to compute a satellite orbit from the Two-line element set (TLE) ?
>
> It would be amazing to have something like http://pyorbital.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ under IDL
>
> Thank you in advance for your help,
> nata

I think you would have two possibilities:

1) do the entire calculation by using IDL. That should not be too difficult, because a TLE text file is simply the list of the Keplerian elements of the osculatrice orbit (i.e. the simple, unperturbated one which is the closest to the true one within some (validity) time interval). This orbit is an ellipse along which the satellite moves according to the 2nd Kepler law (the "loi des aires" in French). I guess that the procedure would involve three steps: i) reference the ellipse plane within your working frame, ii) put the satellite at the right position (depending on time) on the ellipse, iii) back transform the calculated position into your working reference frame.

2) directly use the Python pyportal library through the IDL to Python bridge (needs IDL v8.3+)

The second way is appealing. Could you test it ?
alx.

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93276 is a reply to message #93273]

Fri, 27 May 2016 14:02

Jim Pendleton
Messages: 165
Registered: November 2011

Senior Member

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 at 8:39:22 AM UTC-6, nata wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anybody have a routine to compute a satellite orbit from the Two-line element set (TLE) ?
>
> It would be amazing to have something like http://pyorbital.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ under IDL
>
> Thank you in advance for your help,
> nata

There are some reference implementations in other languages at this site: https://celestrak.com/publications/AIAA/2006-6753/. No IDL, but it should not be too hard to port. I know it's been done before... I believe an efficient IDL port would be considerably fewer than 200 lines of IDL code, excluding comments.

Jim P.

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93280 is a reply to message #93276]

Mon, 30 May 2016 05:47

natha
Messages: 482
Registered: October 2007

Senior Member

Hi guys,

And thank you for all your comments and answers. I've got IDL 8.5.1 on Friday and I think that I will try to link pyOrbital using the bridge. The API is quite well documented and the routines do exactly what I'm looking for.
I find it strange to not find a library or a piece of code to do the TLE calculations in IDL.
If you read this post and you have some code and/or you know where to find it, please share.

Thank you,
nata

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93297 is a reply to message #93273]

Tue, 07 June 2016 20:11

Brian Wolven
Messages: 94
Registered: May 2011

Member

On Thursday, May 26, 2016 at 10:39:22 AM UTC-4, nata wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anybody have a routine to compute a satellite orbit from the Two-line element set (TLE) ?
>
> It would be amazing to have something like http://pyorbital.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ under IDL
>
> Thank you in advance for your help,
> nata

I have an IDL version of the SGP4 code that was created by Jeff Beck at Lehigh University - he was also responsible for the MATLAB version that is more readily available, e.g., here: http://www.codeforge.com/article/215204.

The only problem is... I'm not sure where I got the code originally. You could try contacting the author - email is in the listing at the link above. Alternatively I could drop the folder in dropbox and provide a public link.

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93298 is a reply to message #93297]

Wed, 08 June 2016 05:41

natha
Messages: 482
Registered: October 2007

Senior Member

Thanks Brian, better than nothing!

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Re: Orbit calculations from TLE [message #93859 is a reply to message #93297]

Wed, 09 November 2016 08:08

Cindy[1]
Messages: 1
Registered: November 2016

Junior Member

> I have an IDL version of the SGP4 code that was created by Jeff Beck at Lehigh University - he was also responsible for the MATLAB version that is more readily available, e.g., here: http://www.codeforge.com/article/215204.
>
> The only problem is... I'm not sure where I got the code originally. You could try contacting the author - email is in the listing at the link above. Alternatively I could drop the folder in dropbox and provide a public link.

----
Brian - that link no longer works - do you still have the IDL version of the SGP4 code?

Thanks

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