The International Designator, also known as COSPAR ID, is an international identifier assigned to artificial objects in space. It consists of the launch year, a three-digit incrementing launch number of that year and up to a three-letter code representing the sequential identifier of a piece in a launch. In TLE format the first two digits of the year and the dash are dropped. For example
1990-037A
is the Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' on mission

STS-31 STS-31 was the 35th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program. The primary purpose of this mission was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into low Earth orbit. The mission used the Space Shuttle ''Discovery'' (the tenth missio ...

, which carried the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

1990-037B
into space. This launch was the 37th known successful launch worldwide in 1990. The designation system has been generally known as the

COSPAR The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was established on October 3, 1958 by the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU). Among COSPAR's objectives are the promotion of scientific research in space on an international level, wi ...

system, named for the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the

International Council for Science The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...

. COSPAR subsumed the first designation system, devised at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. That system used letters of the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...

to designate artificial satellites. This was based on the scientific naming convention for natural satellites. For example,

Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...

was designated 1957 Alpha 2. The launch vehicle, which was brighter in orbit, was designated 1957 Alpha 1. Brighter objects in the same launch were given the lower integer number, and Alpha was given since it was the first launch of the year. The Harvard designation system continued to be used for satellites launched up to the end of 1962, when it was replaced with the modern system. The first satellite to receive a new-format designator was Luna E-6 No.2, 1963-001B, although some sources, including the NSSDC website, retroactively apply the new-format designators to older satellites, even those no longer in orbit at the time of its introduction. Designators are assigned to objects by USSPACECOM along with satellite catalog numbers as they are discovered in space. The

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is an office of the U.N. Secretariat that promotes and facilitates peaceful international cooperation in outer space. It works to establish or strengthen the legal and regulatory framew ...

(UNOOSA) and the

National Space Science Data Center The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA) serves as the permanent archive for NASA space science mission data. "Space science" includes astronomy and astrophysics, solar and space plasma (physics), plasma physics, and planetary scien ...

(NSSDC), part of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, maintain two catalogs that provide additional information on the launchers and payloads associated with the designators. While UNOOSA uses COSPAR ID, many NSSDC Master Catalog (NMC) entries are created before launches so they are not always bound to a COSPAR ID. Below are examples: Spacecraft which do not complete an orbit of the Earth, for example launches which fail to achieve orbit, are not assigned IDs. Satellites launched from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

are assigned a COSPAR ID beginning with "1998-067", because the (first module of the) space station was launched in 1998. For example, the satellite GOMX-3, launched on an H-II Transfer Vehicle on August 19, 2015, from

Tanegashima Space Center The (TNSC) is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan with a total area of about 9.7 square kilometers. It is located on the southeast coast of Tanegashima, an island approximately south of Kyushu. It was established in 1969 when the ...

in Japan, is designated COSPAR ID 1998-067HA, because it first arrived on the International Space Station from where it was later launched.

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space

USSTRATCOM Space-Track

CelesTrak
(a partial copy of Space-Track.org catalog)
Small Satellite Debris Catalog Maintenance Issues
Satellites Identifiers

See also

References

External links