SpaceView: Tracking the ATV-5 Reentry

Beginning this weekend, SpaceView is welcoming its members to participate in our SnapSat Collaborative Space Situational Awareness Campaign. Participants will be invited to submit images of the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle 5 (ATV-5) as it departs the International Space Station (ISS) and burns up on reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

What is ATV-5?

The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) satellite is an unmanned spacecraft used to ferry fuel and supplies to the ISS. Once attached, the satellite’s thrusters are used to lift the ISS to a higher orbit, counteracting the atmospheric drag that slowly causes the ISS to lose altitude.

ATV remains attached to the ISS as a pressurized waste-storage module for up to six months. It then ends its mission by undocking from the ISS and performing a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere, breaking up harmlessly over an uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean.

For more on ATV-5, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre_ATV and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle.

For more on the reentry, see http://atv5.seti.org/ and Georges Lemaitre’s Blog http://blogs.esa.int/atv/.

How can I participate?

You don’t have to have a state-of-the-art observatory to participate. Anyone with the means to point a telescope, digital camera or even a smartphone at the night sky can contribute.

SnapSat provides several methods for submission of images including email and FTP. Instructions for submitting data captured with astronomical telescopes, digital cameras, and smartphones are available in the Data Upload Options section below.

What happens to all of the data that is submitted?

The data submitted will be made available in near real time to SpaceView, its sponsors and partners.

When and where should I start looking?

ATV-5 is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 13:41 GMT Saturday, February 14, 2015. ATV-5 will phase in front of the ISS, so it will arrive in view slightly earlier than the space station, but essentially in the same orbit plane.

Data Upload Options

Anonymous FTP

Images of satellites can be uploaded to SnapSat’s anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP) server. The server location is ftp://snapsatftp.spaceviewnetwork.com/

For information about how to upload using anonymous FTP on your system using Microsoft Windows:

Open the FTP website in your browser.

Click Page, and then click Open FTP site in Windows Explorer.

In Windows Explorer, press ALT, click File, and then click Login as.

Type “anonymous” for the user name and your email address as the password, and then click Log On.

Upload your image files to the server.

For security reasons, the files will not be visible on the server.



If you are uncertain that the upload was successful, please email snapsat@spaceviewnetwork.com with the file names for confirmation.

To connect using a Mac or Linux:

Open a new shell (Linux) or terminal (Mac OSX).

Use the “ftp” program on the command line to connect to snapsatftp.spaceviewnetwork.com

If you do not have the program “ftp” installed you will receive an error. In this case please use the install tools on your system to install “ftp.”



Type “anonymous” for the user name and your email address as the password, and then click Log On.



Upload your image files to the server.



For security reasons, the files will not be visible on the server.





If you are uncertain that the upload was successful, please email snapsat@spaceviewnetwork.com with the file names for confirmation.

Email

Images may be emailed to snapsat@spaceviewnetwork.com. File sizes might be limited by your email provider. If the email is returned, please reduce the file size or number of files that you are attempting to upload.

Support

Please email snapsat@spaceviewnetwork.com if you experience technical problems.

SnapSat is SpaceView's collaborative space situational awareness (SSA) data collection project. Through the links on this page, anyone can contribute data to SpaceView.

SnapSat is SpaceView's collaborative space situational awareness (SSA) data collection project. Through the links on this page, anyone can contribute data to SpaceView.

Privacy Advisory

This Web application (Web app) is hosted by GEOST, Inc., and is not a service of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The solicitation and collection of your personally identifiable information (PII), including geolocation data, is subject to GEOST’s privacy and security policies. GEOST may share de-identified (non-PII) information with DARPA for demographic analysis purposes relating to observing habits, capabilities, and interests. Otherwise, GEOST does not share PII with DARPA unless you are the Orbital Outlook Contest (challenge) winner. DARPA requires winner PII for award purposes. Details are available by viewing the challenge specific agreement.

Any PII submitted on this Web app will not be part of a DARPA computer system and will not be used to accomplish any official DARPA functions other than prize award and communications. If and when any PII is incidentally processed to DARPA (as described above), it will be safeguarded in accordance with applicable law, regulations, and guidance - using appropriate physical, administrative, and technical protocols, in a secure network environment - to protect its confidentiality, integrity, and availability.