Somewhere, somebody maintains a current inventory of satellites in
orbit that are broken or malfunctioning in some way, with contact
information for each owner.  Please deliver me the most current list
and plug me into the information flow.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 05 Jun 2004 16:31 PDT

Can you give us an example of what you mean by a satelite's "owner"? 
These days, most missions are quite collaborative, and it can be hard
to say who "owns" a satellite.

Even older satellites are confusing.  Would identifying the US
government as an owner be sufficient, for example?  Or NASA?  What
sort of info are you seeking?

---

Clarification of Question by simanonok-ga on 06 Jun 2004 06:54 PDT

Typically costing many millions to build and many millions more to
launch, satellite ownership is never ambiguous even if it is sometimes
not the easiest information to tease out.  Several typical examples
can be seen at http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bss/factsheets/376/westar_456/westar456.html
where Boeing is touting its recent acquisition of Westar IV, V, and VI
which were originally built by Hughes' Space and Communications Group
for Western Union.  If one of these satellites were to malfunction or
stop operating entirely, that is what I want to know about, including
some type of useful contact information as specific as possible beyond
merely 'Boeing'.   For example adequate contact information exists at
http://boeing.com/contacts/:

Boeing World Headquarters 
100 North Riverside 
Chicago, Illinois 60606
312-544-2000 

Another example can be seen at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1780564.stm
where the French Spot 5 satellite "is being developed by the space
company Astrium for the National Space Studies Centre (CNES) in
Toulouse, southwest France, in co-operation with Sweden and Belgium"
(that was in 2002, so it is presumably on orbit now).  This is indeed
a collaborative project but it is clear that CNES would be the best
point of contact, in which case their website at
http://www.cnes.fr/html/_.php or even better their Contact Us page at
http://www.cnes.fr/html/_207_.php would be adequate contact
information.

I'm not asking for an exhaustive player-by-player analysis of the
sometimes-complex ownership of every ailing satellite, just a main
contact for each one, but not so vague that further research is
required to actually find out who to contact.  For example in the case
of the U.S. Government, there is always a specific agency and/or
subagency to refer to, such as the many satellites operated by NOAA
which can be seen at http://www.noaa.gov/satellites.html.  Within NOAA
is the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service
which actually manages their satellites, and their contact information
is provided at http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/contact.html/:

NESDIS Headquarters
1335 East-West Highway, SSMC1, Room 7216
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Phone: 301-713-3578, Fax: 301-713-1249


There will inevitably be some gaps in the data in cases where there
are dead or dying military satellites but their status and possibly
even 'owners' is classified.  I'm not asking for any secret
information however, only public, of which there must be dozens of
relevant satellites on orbit by now.  I would be interested in
learning about any dead satellites that have been returned to earth
for repair and relaunch that you might uncover, but they are not
required to adequately answer this question.  It is likely that there
will be some foreign disabled satellites too that would inevitably
slip through the cracks, and that's okay because I'm looking for a
reasonably exhaustive analysis and not the unreasonable.

In some cases, like when a satellite fails to deploy itself properly
after launch, an insurance company can become the actual owner of a
satellite after paying a huge insurance claim to the original owners. 
That is often discoverable in news reports about failed satellites,
and I would want contact information for the insurance company under
those circumstances.

Keep in mind that I'm looking for the big picture here and am not
expecting that every single disabled military or Russian satellite
will make the list I am seeking.  But on the other hand I'm not going
to be happy with a superficial list of half a dozen of the
easiest-to-find cases either, I do want a reasonably comprehensive
list that will include MOST of the disabled satellites presently on
orbit.  They can be of any age as long as they are still on orbit, and
there must be dozens of them by now.

Somewhere there has to be somebody who already archives this
information.  Perhaps that someone is in the Department of Commerce,
which regulates private satellites.  It's just a matter of finding
them and prying the information out of them.  :)

Hummer, your response doesn't address whether the owner (or former
owner) of any of this space junk is included in any of these
databases.

I found some additional websites using the following search argument:
database orbiting debris

http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/index.html -- NASA Orbital
Debris Program Office

http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/newsletter/newsletter.html --
NASA's Orbital Debris Quarterly News

http://www.esoc.esa.de/external/mso/debris.html -- In 39 years of
space activities some 3750 launches led to more than 23000 observable
space objects (larger than 10 cm)

of which currently 7500 are still on orbit. Only 6% of the catalogued
orbit population are operational spacecraft, while 50% can be
attributed to decommissioned

satellites, spent upper stages, and mission related objects (launch
adapters, lens covers, etc.). The remainder of 44% is originating from
129 on-orbit fragmentations

which have been recorded since 1961. These events, all but 1 or 2 of
them explosions of spacecraft and upper stages, are assumed to have
generated a population of objects

larger than 1 cm on the order of 70000 to 120000. Only near sizes of
0.1 mm the sporadic flux from meteoroids prevails over man-made
debris.

Thank you, some of these are very interesting links, but they don't
really address my question.  I'm not interested in every little bit
and piece of trash that may be floating around out there but complete
satellites that are no longer functioning or else are malfunctioning. 
Plus I want to know who owns them.

Hello Simanonok,
Have you contected NASA directly to inquire if they have a list of
such non-functional satellites in space?

Researchers, to save you some work, here are the results of my
research which I posted as an answer. hummer

"The Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC) version 4C computer
system... maintains the Satellite Catalog (SATCAT) which is a database
containing the location of all space objects being monitored by
NORAD?s Space Surveillance Network.
The location of each object, whether it is a payload or a piece of
space junk, is represented by an element set (ELSET). Currently, the
database contains a little less than 9000 ELSETs. The SATCAT is
maintained by receiving observations from the surveillance network,
then updating the ELSET with the new observations. The updated ELSETs
are then supplied to the surveillance network which propagates the
objects over the sensor site for acquisition and to provide updated
objects back to Cheyenne Mountain."
http://www.manningaffordability.com/s&tweb/PUBS/SPADOC/spadoc_4c.html

Space Control Center:
"The Space Control Center supports the space control missions of space
surveillance and protection of our assets in space. This center was
formed in March 1994 through the combination of the Space Surveillance
Center and Space Defensive Operations Center. The Space Control
Center's primary objective in performing the surveillance mission is
to detect, track, identify, and catalog all man-made objects in space.
The Center maintains a current computerized catalog of all orbiting
space objects, charts objects, charts present position, plots future
orbital paths, and forecasts times and general locations for
significant objects reentering the Earth's atmosphere. Since 1957,
over 24,000 space objects have been cataloged, many of which have
since reentered the atmosphere. Currently, there are about 8,000
on-orbit objects being tracked by the Space Control Center."
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/bases031.html

The Satellite Catalog:
"In order to be able to keep track of everything once it's detected,
the 1st Command and Control Squadron (1st CACS) maintains a catalog of
all space objects orbiting the earth (and some beyond) which are ten
centimeters (about the size of a baseball) or larger in size. Over the
years, they have catalogued almost 25,000 objects. Of the 8,500
objects being tracked today, only about 7 percent are operational
satellites, 15 percent are rocket bodies, and the remaining 78 percent
are either inactive satellites or assorted other space debris."
http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Stephen.Farrell/ipn/background/computers-and-satellites/v04n01.html

>>>>>>>>>>>>

SATCAT Boxscore Current as of 2004 May 26
PAYLOADS  	
On Orbit   Decayed    Total 
2,982	    2,675      5,657
DEBRIS
On Orbit   Decayed    Total
6,316	   16,315     22,631
ALL	
On Orbit   Decayed    Total 	
9,298	   18,990     28,288
http://www.celestrak.com/satcat/boxscore.shtml

GRAPH: Growth of the Satellite Catalog:
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/COPUOS/stsc/2003/presentations/Johnson/sld010.htm

>>>>>>>>>

Space Object Catalog (SATCAT.TXT) sorted by NORAD NUMBER by Chief Hill:
ftp://ftp.dransom.com/orbitel/satcat.txt

SATELLITE CATALOG - "My version of the Space Command satellite
catalog, providing a cross reference between catalog number and
international designation. Complete up to 1 Aug 2003. Corrections are
welcome. Warning: this is a 2 Mbyte ASCII text file."
http://planet4589.org/space/log/satcat.txt

CATALOG UPDATES TO mAY 10, 2004:
http://users2.ev1.net/~mmccants/catalogs/

The United Nations Registry of Space Objects 2003 Jun 5:
http://www.planet4589.org/space/un/un.html

>>>>>>>>>

Geostationary Orbit Catalog:
"The GEO catalog lists objects in or near geosynchronous orbit."
http://planet4589.org/space/book/LOGS/logindex/geo.html

   Geostationary Orbit Catalog: Index
   http://planet4589.org/space/logs/geo.date

   Geostationary Orbit Catalog: Current orbits
   http://planet4589.org/space/logs/geo.log

Searching NORAD CATALOG returns:
Catalog# - Satellite Name - Source - Launch Date - Launch Site - Decay Date
http://www.celestrak.com/satcat/search.shtml

>>>>>>>>>

Additional Links of Interest:

Lots of links:
http://www.dransom.com/

Orbital Elements and Satellite Observing: More Links:
http://www.ssl.umd.edu/space/orbital.html