Spartan 201

Spartan 201 is catalogued in this registry as a telescope, held in the frame of Earth, from GCAT — artificial space objects.

Registry id GCAT_S23668 · source layer gcat · provenance PROCESSED — derived deterministically from source catalogues (unit, frame and epoch conversions, cross-source reconciliation) — no value invented

Exists from 1995-09-07 15:09:00 UTC (JD 2449968.13125) until 1995-09-08 15:11:59 UTC (JD 2449969.13333).

Open Spartan 201 in the live scene → The scene composes a position for any date and is where a figure becomes a picture. It downloads the whole catalogue first: measured against the built product, an object outside the core resolves after about 16 s over a local network and about 147 s over a 4 Mbit link, having transferred roughly 70 MB. If you cannot wait that long, this page is the answer.

Sources disagree about this object

The registry keeps every source's value rather than choosing one and discarding the rest. If you quote a figure below, quoting it alone would hide a real disagreement between catalogues.

Measured quantities

QuantityValueUncertaintySource
Radius1.15 mno published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Mass1290 kgno published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects

Each row carries its own uncertainty and its own source. Where a row says no uncertainty is published, that is what the catalogue says — it is not a claim that the value is exact.

Orbit

These are the sourced elements. This page does not print a position: a position is a function of time, and a single one dated to the bake would be stale the moment it was read. The registry composes a position for any date, past or future, from these elements — open the scene below and set the clock.

QuantityValueUncertaintySource
Semi-major axis6746500 m (6746.5 km)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Eccentricity0.0009635 no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Inclination0.886984 rad (50.8204°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Longitude of ascending node-2.900774 rad (-166.2021°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Argument of periapsis0 rad (0°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects
Mean anomaly at epoch1.137701 rad (65.18547°)no published uncertainty in this registryGCAT — artificial space objects

Elements are expressed in the frame of EARTH at epoch 1995-09-09 00:00:00 UTC (JD 2449969.5). Gravitational parameter of the primary: 3.9861389×10^14 m³/s². Semi-major axis in astronomical units uses the IAU 2012 definition (1 au = 1.495978707×10^11 m exactly).

Classification

Kindtelescope
Originartificial (made by humans)
Operating nationUSA
Operator classgovernmental
Launch site codeKSC
Launch vehicleSpace Shuttle
Launch outcomesuccess
UN registrationregistered with the United Nations — USA · ST/SG/SER.E/301
Separated fromGCAT_A05675 on 1995-09-08 15:11:59 UTC (JD 2449969.1333333333)
3-D modelcarries a published mesh

The catalogue's own note

S23668 #23668 1995-048B · GSFC/US · mfr GSFC · bus SPTN-200 · op LLEO/I · category AST · class C · program Spartan · a/e/i GCAT; Ω,ω,M₀ not in GCAT → placeholder spread (ω = 0; display only) [GCAT]

Reproduced as the source wrote it. Author-year citations link to their DOI where one is registered.

What this registry does not know about it

These are absences in the catalogues aggregated here, not measurements of zero, and not statements that the quantity is unknown to science:

Where this record comes from

DatabaseGCAT — artificial space objects
AuthorityGCAT — General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (J. McDowell)
Addresshttps://planet4589.org/space/gcat/tsv
LicenceCC-BY 4.0 — https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/
How it enteredRAW snapshot via scripts/ingest-gcat.ts
Snapshot2026-06-09
Coverage54,915 objects; 1138 multisegment; 349 landed; debris archived, off by default; 1,797 failed-to-orbit objects placed at their launch sites (existence-windowed to their fall); uncatalogued (CSO/analyst) objects included; 36 marked-erroneous (ERR) phantom entries skipped; 20,196 carry a MEASURED Ω/ω/M₀ from a Celestrak GP join, the rest a deterministic placeholder spread; launch log joined by Launch_Tag → site:/lv:/outcome: facets on 54,557 objects (54,508 with minute-precise launch time); 99 deep-space trajectories refined by JPL Horizons navigation arcs (piecewise osculating elements, heliocentric cruise spans only)

This database remains the property of its owners and is reused under its own licence. If you quote a value from this page, name that database alongside SolarSystemRegistry.org.