NAME

Astro::SpaceTrack - Retrieve orbital data from www.space-track.org.

SYNOPSIS

my $st = Astro::SpaceTrack->new (username => $me,
    password => $secret, with_name => 1) or die;
my $rslt = $st->spacetrack ('special');
print $rslt->is_success ? $rslt->content :
    $rslt->status_line;

perl -MAstro::SpaceTrack=shell -e shell

(some banner text gets printed here)

SpaceTrack> set username me password secret
OK
SpaceTrack> set with_name 1
OK
SpaceTrack> spacetrack special >special.txt
SpaceTrack> celestrak visual >visual.txt
SpaceTrack> exit

LEGAL NOTICE

The following two paragraphs are quoted from the Space Track web site.

Due to existing National Security Restrictions pertaining to access of and use of U.S. Government-provided information and data, all users accessing this web site must be an approved registered user to access data on this site.

By logging in to the site, you accept and agree to the terms of the User Agreement specified in http://www.space-track.org/perl/user_agreement.pl.

You should consult the above link for the full text of the user agreement before using this software.

DESCRIPTION

This package accesses the Space-Track web site, http://www.space-track.org, and retrieves orbital data from this site. You must register and get a username and password before you can make use of this package, and you must abide by the site's restrictions, which include not making the data available to a third party.

In addition, the celestrak method queries http://celestrak.com/ for a named data set, and then queries http://www.space-track.org for the orbital elements of the objects in the data set.

There is no provision for the retrieval of historical data.

Nothing is exported by default, but the shell method/subroutine can be exported if you so desire.

Most methods return an HTTP::Response object. See the individual method document for details. Methods which return orbital data on success add a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header to the HTTP::Response object if the request succeeds.

Methods

The following methods should be considered public:

$st = Astro::SpaceTrack->new ( ... )

This method instantiates a new Space-Track accessor object. If any arguments are passed, the set () method is called on the new object, and passed the arguments given.

Proxies are taken from the environment if defined. See the ENVIRONMENT section of the Perl LWP documentation for more information on how to set these up.

$resp = banner ();

This method is a convenience/nuisance: it simply returns a fake HTTP::Response with standard banner text. It's really just for the benefit of the shell method.

$resp = $st->celestrak ($name);

This method takes the name of a Celestrak data set and returns an HTTP::Response object whose content is the relevant element sets. If called in list context, the first element of the list is the aforementioned HTTP::Response object, and the second element is a list reference to list references (i.e. a list of lists). Each of the list references contains the catalog ID of a satellite or other orbiting body and the common name of the body.

If the 'direct' attribute is true, the elements will be fetched directly from Celestrak, and no login is needed. Otherwise, This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

$type = $st->content_type ($resp);

This method takes the given HTTP::Response object and returns the data type specified by the 'Pragma: spacetrack-type =' header. The following values are supported:

'orbit': The content is NORAD data sets.
undef: No spacetrack-type pragma was specified. The
       content is something else.

If the response object is not provided, it returns the data type from the last method call that returned an HTTP::Response object.

$resp = $st->file ($name)

This method takes the name of an observing list file, or a handle to an open observing list file, and returns an HTTP::Response object whose content is the relevant element sets. If called in list context, the first element of the list is the aforementioned HTTP::Response object, and the second element is a list reference to list references (i.e. a list of lists). Each of the list references contains the catalog ID of a satellite or other orbiting body and the common name of the body.

This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

The observing list file is (how convenient!) in the Celestrak format, with the first five characters of each line containing the object ID, and the rest containing a name of the object. Lines whose first five characters do not look like a right-justified number will be ignored.

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

$resp = $st->get (attrib)

This method returns an HTTP::Response object whose content is the value of the given attribute. If called in list context, the second element of the list is just the value of the attribute, for those who don't want to winkle it out of the response object. We croak on a bad attribute name.

See "Attributes" for the names and functions of the attributes.

$resp = $st->help ()

This method exists for the convenience of the shell () method. It always returns success, with the content being whatever it's convenient (to the author) to include.

$resp = $st->login ( ... )

If any arguments are given, this method passes them to the set () method. Then it executes a login. The return is normally the HTTP::Response object from the login. But if no session cookie was obtained, the return is an HTTP::Response with an appropriate message and the code set to RC_UNAUTHORIZED from HTTP::Status (a.k.a. 401). If a login is attempted without the username and password being set, the return is an HTTP::Response with an appropriate message and the code set to RC_PRECONDITION_FAILED from HTTP::Status (a.k.a. 412).

$resp = $st->names (source)

This method retrieves the names of the catalogs for the given source, either 'celestrak' or 'spacetrack', in the content of the given HTTP::Response object. In list context, you also get a reference to a list of two-element lists; each inner list contains the description and the catalog name (suitable for inserting into a Tk Optionmenu).

$resp = $st->retrieve (number_or_range ...)

This method retrieves the latest element set for each of the given catalog numbers. Non-numeric catalog numbers are ignored, as are (at a later stage) numbers that don't actually represent a satellite.

Number ranges are represented as 'start-end', where both 'start' and 'end' are catalog numbers. If 'start' > 'end', the numbers will be taken in the reverse order. Non-numeric ranges are ignored.

In order not to load the Space Track web site too heavily, data are retrieved in batches of 50. Ranges will be subdivided and handled in more than one retrieval if necessary. To limit the damage done by a pernicious range, ranges greater than the max_range setting (which defaults to 500) will be ignored with a warning to STDERR.

This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

$resp = $st->search_id (id ...)

This method searches the database for objects having the given international IDs. The international ID is the last two digits of the launch year (in the range 1957 through 2056), the three-digit sequence number of the launch within the year (with leading zeroes as needed), and the piece (A through ZZ, with A typically being the payload). You can omit the piece and get all pieces of that launch, or omit both the piece and the launch number and get all launches for the year. There is no mechanism to restrict the search to a given date range, on-orbit status, or to filter out debris or rocket bodies.

This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

On success, this method returns an HTTP::Response object whose content is the relevant element sets. If called in list context, the first element of the list is the aforementioned HTTP::Response object, and the second element is a list reference to list references (i.e. a list of lists). The first list reference contains the header text for all columns returned, and the subsequent list references contain the data for each match.

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

$resp = $st->search_name (name ...)

This method searches the database for the named objects. Matches are case-insensitive and all matches are returned. There is no mechanism to restrict the search to a given date range, on-orbit status, or to filter out debris or rocket bodies.

This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

$st->set ( ... )

This is the mutator method for the object. It can be called explicitly, but other methods as noted may call it implicitly also. It croaks if you give it an odd number of arguments, or if given an attribute that either does not exist or cannot be set.

For the convenience of the shell method we return a HTTP::Response object with a success status if all goes well. But if we encounter an error we croak.

See "Attributes" for the names and functions of the attributes.

$st->shell ()

This method implements a simple shell. Any public method name except 'new' or 'shell' is a command, and its arguments if any are parameters. We use Text::ParseWords to parse the line, and blank lines or lines beginning with a hash mark ('#') are ignored. Input is via Term::ReadLine if that's available. If not, we do the best we can.

We also recognize 'bye' and 'exit' as commands.

For commands that produce output, we allow a sort of pseudo-redirection of the output to a file, using the syntax ">filename" or ">>filename". If the ">" is by itself the next argument is the filename. In addition, we do pseudo-tilde expansion by replacing a leading tilde with the contents of environment variable HOME. Redirection can occur anywhere on the line. For example,

SpaceTrack> catalog special >special.txt

sends the "Special Interest Satellites" to file special.txt. Line terminations in the file should be appropriate to your OS.

This method can also be called as a subroutine - i.e. as

Astro::SpaceTrack::shell (...)

Whether called as a method or as a subroutine, each argument passed (if any) is parsed as though it were a valid command. After all such have been executed, control passes to the user. Unless, of course, one of the arguments was 'exit'.

Unlike most of the other methods, this one returns nothing.

$st->source ($filename);

This convenience method reads the given file, and passes the individual lines to the shell method. It croaks if the file is not provided or cannot be read.

$resp = $st->spaceflight ()

This method downloads current orbital elements from NASA's human spaceflight site, http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/. As of November 2005 you get the International Space Station. An attempt is made to get the current Space Shuttle mission if any, but as there is no way to test this unless there is a mission in progress, whether this works is anybody's guess.

No Space Track account is needed to access this data, even if the 'direct' attribute is false. But if the 'direct' attribute is true, the setting of the 'with_name' attribute is ignored.

This method is a web page scraper. any change in the location of the web pages, or any substantial change in their format, will break this method.

$resp = $st->spacetrack ($name_or_number);

This method downloads the given bulk catalog of orbital elements. If the argument is an integer, it represents the number of the catalog to download. Otherwise, it is expected to be the name of the catalog, and whether you get a two-line or three-line dataset is specified by the setting of the with_name attribute. The return is the HTTP::Response object fetched. If an invalid catalog name is requested, an HTTP::Response object is returned, with an appropriate message and the error code set to RC_NOTFOUND from HTTP::Status (a.k.a. 404).

Assuming success, the content of the response is the literal element set requested. Yes, it comes down gzipped, but we unzip it for you. See the synopsis for sample code to retrieve and print the 'special' catalog in three-line format.

This method implicitly calls the login () method if the session cookie is missing or expired. If login () fails, you will get the HTTP::Response from login ().

If this method succeeds, a 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header is added to the HTTP::Response object returned.

Attributes

The following attributes may be modified by the user to affect the operation of the Astro::SpaceTrack object. The data type of each is given in parentheses after the attribute name.

Boolean attributes are typically set to 1 for true, and 0 for false.

addendum (text)

This attribute specifies text to add to the output of the banner() method.

The default is an empty string.

banner (boolean)

This attribute specifies whether or not the shell() method should emit the banner text on invocation.

The default is true (i.e. 1).

cookie_expires (number)

This attribute specifies the expiration time of the cookie. You should only set this attribute with a previously-retrieved value, which matches the cookie.

direct (boolean)

This attribute specifies that orbital elements should be fetched directly from the redistributor if possible. At the moment the only methods affected by this are celestrak() and spaceflight().

The default is false (i.e. 0).

filter (boolean)

If true, this attribute specifies that the shell is being run in filter mode, and prevents any output to STDOUT except orbital elements -- that is, if I found all the places that needed modification.

The default is false (i.e. 0).

max_range (number)

This attribute specifies the maximum size of a range of NORAD IDs to be retrieved. Its purpose is to impose a sanity check on the use of the range functionality.

The default is 500.

password (text)

This attribute specifies the Space-Track password.

The default is an empty string.

session_cookie (text)

This attribute specifies the session cookie. You should only set it with a previously-retrieved value.

The default is an empty string.

username (text)

This attribute specifies the Space-Track username.

The default is an empty string.

verbose (boolean)

This attribute specifies verbose error messages.

The default is false (i.e. 0).

with_name (boolean)

This attribute specifies whether the returned element sets should include the common name of the body (three-line format) or not (two-line format). It is ignored if the 'direct' attribute is true; in this case you get whatever the redistributor provides.

The default is false (i.e. 0).

ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variables are recognized by Astro::SpaceTrack.

SPACETRACK_OPT

If environment variable SPACETRACK_OPT is defined at the time an Astro::SpaceTrack object is instantiated, it is broken on spaces, and the result passed to the set command.

If you specify username or password in SPACETRACK_OPT and you also specify SPACETRACK_USER, the latter takes precedence, and arguments passed explicitly to the new () method take precedence over both.

SPACETRACK_USER

If environment variable SPACETRACK_USER is defined at the time an Astro::SpaceTrack object is instantiated, the username and password will be initialized from it. The value of the environment variable should be the username followed by a slash ("/") and the password.

An explicit username and/or password passed to the new () method overrides the environment variable, as does any subsequently-set username or password.

EXECUTABLES

A couple specimen executables are included in this distribution:

SpaceTrack

This is just a wrapper for the shell () method.

SpaceTrackTk

This provides a Perl/Tk interface to Astro::SpaceTrack.

BUGS

This software is essentially a web page scraper, and relies on the stability of the user interface to Space Track. The Celestrak portion of the functionality relies on the presence of .txt files named after the desired data set residing in the expected location. The Human Space Flight portion of the functionality relies on the stability of the layout of the relevant web pages.

This software has not been tested under a HUGE number of operating systems, Perl versions, and Perl module versions. It is rather likely, for example, that the module will die horribly if run with an insufficiently-up-to-date version of LWP or HTML::Parser.

MODIFICATIONS

0.003 26-Mar-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Initial release to CPAN.
0.004 30-Mar-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added file method, for local observing lists.
  Changed Content-Type header of spacetrack () response
    to text/plain. Used to be text/text.
  Manufactured pristine HTTP::Response for successsful
    login call.
  Added source method, for passing the contents of a file
    to the shell method
  Skip username and password prompts, and login and
    retrieval tests if environment variable
    AUTOMATED_TESTING is true and environment variable
    SPACETRACK_USER is undefined.
0.005 02-Apr-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Proofread and correct POD.
0.006 08-Apr-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added search_id method.
  Made specimen scripts into installable executables.
  Add pseudo-tilde expansion to shell method.
0.007 15-Apr-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Document attributes (under set() method)
  Have login return actual failure on HTTP error. Used
    to return 401 any time we didn't get the cookie.
0.008 19-Jul-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Consolidate dump code.
  Have file() method take open handle as arg.
  Modify cookie check.
  Add mutator, accessor for cookie_expires,
    session_cookie.
0.009 17-Sep-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Only require Term::ReadLine and create interface if
  the shell() method actually called.
0.010 14-Oct-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added the 'direct' attribute, to fetch elements
  directly from celestrak. And about time, too.
0.011 30-Oct-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added 'Pragma: spacetrack-type = orbit' header to
  the response for those methods that return orbital
  elements, if the request in fact succeeded.
  Added content_type() method to check for the above.
  Played the CPANTS game.
  Added "All rights reserved." to copyright statement.
0.012 04-Nov-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added support for number ranges in retrieve(), to
  track support for these on www.space-track.org.
  Added max_range attribute for sanity checking.
0.013 21-Nov-2005 T. R. Wyant
  Added spaceflight() method.
  Added "All rights reserved." to banner() output.
  Spiffed up the documentation.
0.014 28-Jan-2006 T. R. Wyant
  Added filter attribute.
  Jocky the Term::ReadLine code yet again.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Dr. T. S. Kelso of http://celestrak.com/ and the staff of http://www.space-track.org/ (whose names are unfortunately unknown to me) for their co-operation, assistance and encouragement.

AUTHOR

Thomas R. Wyant, III (wyant at cpan dot org)

COPYRIGHT

This module is free software; you can use it, redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The data obtained by this module is provided subject to the Space Track user agreement (http://www.space-track.org/perl/user_agreement.pl).

This software is provided without any warranty of any kind, express or implied. The author will not be liable for any damages of any sort relating in any way to this software.

To install Astro::SpaceTrack, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.

cpanm

cpanm Astro::SpaceTrack

CPAN shell

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Astro::SpaceTrack

For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.

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NAME

SYNOPSIS

LEGAL NOTICE

DESCRIPTION

Methods

Attributes

ENVIRONMENT

SPACETRACK_OPT

SPACETRACK_USER

EXECUTABLES

SpaceTrack

SpaceTrackTk

BUGS

MODIFICATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

Module Install Instructions