NORAD Two-Line Element Set Format

As I mentioned in my previous publication, NORAD Two-Line Element Set Format is a standard operating procedure to transmit satellites orbital parameters.

For example:

123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789

NOAA 14

1 23455U 94089A   97320.90946019  .00000140  00000-0  10191-3 0  2621

2 23455  99.0090 272.6745 0008546 223.1686 136.8816 14.11711747148495

To facilitate the compression, I have added column number in the first row. As a result we can detect we have 69 characters.

Lines (0, 1 and 2) description:

– Line 0: satellite name

– Line 1 description:

 

Line 1
Columns	Description	Example
01	Row number	1
03-07	Satellite number	23455
08	Classification (U=Unclassified)	U
09	None	Â
10-11	International Designator (Last two digits of launch year)	94
12-14	International Designator (Launch number of the year)	089
15-17	International Designator (Piece of the launch)	A00
18	None
19-20	Epoch Year (Last two digits of year)	97
21-32	Epoch (Day of the year and fractional portion of the day)	97320.90946019
34-43	First Time Derivative of the Mean Motion	.00000140
45-52	Second Time Derivative of Mean Motion (decimal point assumed)	00000-0
53	None
54-61	BSTAR drag term (decimal point assumed)	10191-3
62	None
63	Ephemeris type	0
64	None
65-68	Element number	262
69	Checksum (Modulo 10) (Letters, blanks, periods, plus signs = 0; minus signs = 1)	1

– Line 2 description:

Line 2
Columnas	Description	Example
01	Line Number of Element Data	2
03-07	Satellite Number	23455
08	None
09-16	Inclination [Degrees]	99.0090
17	None
18-25	Right Ascension of the Ascending Node [Degrees]	275.6745
26	None
27-33	Eccentricity (decimal point assumed)	0008546
34	None
35-42	Argument of Perigee [Degrees]	223.1686
43	None
44-51	Mean Anomaly [Degrees]	136.8816
52	None
53-63	Mean Motion [Revs per day]	14.11711747
64-68	Revolution number at epoch [Revs]	14849
69	Checksum	5