Jonathan's Space Report

Back to Site Home
Back to Astronautics Home
Introduction
Release Notes
I. Definitions and Conventions
II: Organizations Database
- Orgs File: Text and TSV
III: Launch Origins Database
- Sites File: Text and TSV
- Launch Points File: Text and TSV
IV: Launch Platforms
- Platforms File: Text and TSV
V: Launch Vehicles
VI: Launch Lists
- Data: By family
- Data: By designation
- Data: Full list (TSV)
- Data: By family (tar.gz) Supporting files (tar.gz)
VII: Worlds in the Solar System
- Worlds Data: Text and TSV
- Spin Data: Text and TSV
VIII: Object Catalogs
- Documentation
- Main catalogs
  - satcat (Standard) Text and TSV
  - auxcat (Auxiliary) Text and TSV
  - ftocat (Failed to orbit) Text and TSV
- Temporary catalogs
  - tmpcat (Temporary) Text and TSV
  - csocat (Complementary) Text and TSV
- Supporting catalogs
  - lcat (Endoatmospheric/Low) Text and TSV
  - rcat (Suborbital/Rockets) Text and TSV
- Event catalogs
  - ecat (Events) Text and TSV
  - deepcat (Deep Space) Text and TSV
  - deepcat to satcat/auxcat crossindex Text and TSV
  - hcocat (Heliocentric Register) Text and TSV
  - lprcat (Lunar and Planetary Register) Text and TSV
- Payload catalogs
  - psatcat (Standard, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - pauxcat (Auxiliary, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - pftocat (Failed to orbit, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - ptmpcat (Temporary, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - plcat (Low, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - prcat (Suborb, Payloads) Text and TSV
  - pdeepcat (Deep, Payloads) Text and TSV
- usatcat (List of Unicode satellite names) Text and TSV
- Derived catalogs
  - Current Catalog (Summary of current space object catalog): Column descriptions; Data (Text) and Data (TSV)
  - Orbital Launch Log (orbital launches and payloads) - Column descriptions; Data (Text) and Data (TSV)
  - Geosync Catalog - Column descriptions; Data (Text) and Data (TSV)
- All catalogs (tar.gz)
Acknowledgements
Documentation (PDF) || Catalogs (left pages) (PDF) || Catalogs (right pages) (PDF)

GCAT Release 1.5.7 (2024 Oct 18) | Data Update 2024 Nov 30

The General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects (GCAT) makes public the full satellite database that underlies Jonathan's Space Report

The diagram below indicates the general structure of the database, which reflects the data model of the information it describes.

An artificial space object (for short, in future simply `object') a satellite or spacecraft (active payload, rocket stage, discarded component, piece of debris) outside the Earth's lower atmosphere. At a given time it can be in one of the following object states:

Attached to another object
In free flight in the gravitational field of a world or astronomical body
On the surface of an astronomical body
Destroyed (in a collision, explosion or by burnup in atmospheric entry).

Each time the object transitions to another state (undocks, is attached to something, reenters, changes which body it is orbiting, etc.) marks the beginning or end of a phase. Most objects in GCAT have only a single phase - they separate from an object (launch vehicle) and then are either still in free flight or have reentered. However, some objects go through many phases.

The main object catalogs define and list the first phase of each object. Objects with more than one phase have their subsequent phases listed as entries in the event object catalogs. A subset of objects are considered payloads and have additional data in the payload catalogs.

Each object (with rare exceptions) is associated with a single launch, described in the launch lists. Each launch may be associated with many objects. The launch lists are the same as those in the already-published LVDB.

Each launch is associated with a launch vehicle and a launch origin (generalization of launch site), and both launches and objects are associated with organizations of several kinds (countries, owners, manufacturers). These associations are expressed by strings which link the launch and object catalogs with the supporting tables.

Figure: (1) Overall structure of GCAT. (2) Detailed structure of the object catalogs.

The supporting tables and the launch lists were published as GCAT release 1.0.2 in Aug 2020. Pre-release versions have been public for a decade as part of the Launch Vehicle Database (LVDB). Release 1.1.0 is the first complete, formally versioned and documented release to include the object catalogs.

For each payload, there is also a payload narrative and a payload event log. However, these are considerably further from being ready for publication, so don't hold your breath.

Note that in fixed width versions of the table files, column names are truncated to the field width. Sorry about that!

Citing GCAT

GCAT is released under the Creative Commons CC-BY licence. You are free to use the data in GCAT as long as you include a citation to it. A suitable short citation is 'data from GCAT (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat)'. A full citation is

McDowell, Jonathan C., 2020. General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects,
  Release 1.5.7 , https://planet4589.org/space/gcat

GCAT: General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects

Jonathan C. McDowell

Introduction

Citing GCAT