ISS location

[stone_i]

Hello,
Hope someone can help me. There are discrepancies between the location data I'm receiving from the ISS library compared with online traking websites e.g. https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/tracking_map.cfm and http://www.isstracker.com/
I noticed this problem was posted 12 months ago but I was unable to reply to that thread:
viewtopic.php?t=329048
I used the same code as the user then, not sure if the issue was resolved,
Thanks
Irene

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from orbit import ISS #to find where ISS is.
point = ISS.coordinates()
print(point.latitude.degrees)
print(point.longitude.degrees)

[neilgl]

Looks like the orbit python module just makes a request to the celestrak API with a satellite number ISS=25544
http://www.celestrak.com/cgi-bin/TLE.pl?CATNR=25544
If we enter that in a browser, we get

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ISS (ZARYA)             
1 25544U 98067A   23050.38370686  .00017978  00000+0  31944-3 0  9996
2 25544  51.6393 192.0226 0009722   6.3932  20.8348 15.50210334383524

whereas NASA tracker gives

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Latitude Longitude Altitude Speed      Time (GMT)
47,3 N	 133,5 W   418 km   27604 km/h 19 Feb 2023, 15:34:42

So, looks like Celestrak is not being updated regularly - maybe ask them?

[gordon77]

Heavens-above .com appears to have the same data as celestrak and shows the correct position...

1 25544U 98067A 23050.58757273 .00017402 00000-0 30944-3 0 9991
2 25544 51.6393 191.0122 0009615 6.9019 78.7997 15.50215394383557