fetch current gp/tle element sets from celestrak in json or csv
domain: celestrak.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Build a GET request to https://celestrak.org/NORAD/elements/gp.php with one query predicate (CATNR, INTDES, NAME, or GROUP) plus FORMAT.
Use GROUP=active or another named group for a curated set (e.g. GROUP=active&FORMAT=json), or CATNR=<id> for a single object.
Set FORMAT=json (or json-pretty/csv) to get OMM-keyword fields instead of the legacy fixed-width TLE default.
Parse OMM fields (OBJECT_NAME, NORAD_CAT_ID, EPOCH, MEAN_MOTION, ECCENTRICITY, etc.) which follow the CCSDS 502.0-B-3 naming used by the OMM standard.
Cache the response locally and only re-fetch after CelesTrak's ~2-hour update cycle.
Known gotchas
CelesTrak checks for new GP data only once every 2 hours; polling more often wastes quota and can get your IP temporarily 403-blocked.
Always query the .org domain directly (not .com) — the legacy .com redirect is a common source of silent failures in scripts that don't follow redirects.
Query predicates must be uppercase, and objects above catalog number 99999 are not available in TLE/2LE/3LE format, only OMM-based formats (JSON/XML/KVN/CSV).
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