Author Topic: USA Military satellites - what are the OPS and FTV designations?  (Read 4965 times)

Offline Galactic Penguin SST

While sorting out some Wikipedia articles, I found that most USA military satellites up till the early 1980's use some kind of designation numbers as the "official" name of the spacecraft. Most of them use the name "OPS xxxx", with seemingly random selection of the four-digit number. A few also use "FTV xxxx".

What does these two numbers stand for, and is there any system of the numbers?

GPS
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Offline Blackstar

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JCM will have the definitive answer, but I think that OPS is not an acronym, but stands for "operations" and is simply a designation applied to an operating vehicle. I think that "FTV" stands for "flight test vehicle."

But Jonathan will have the definitive answer.

Offline Jim

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While sorting out some Wikipedia articles, I found that most USA military satellites up till the early 1980's use some kind of designation numbers as the "official" name of the spacecraft. Most of them use the name "OPS xxxx", with seemingly random selection of the four-digit number. A few also use "FTV xxxx".

What does these two numbers stand for, and is there any system of the numbers?

GPS


Can you show examples?

Offline Galactic Penguin SST

While sorting out some Wikipedia articles, I found that most USA military satellites up till the early 1980's use some kind of designation numbers as the "official" name of the spacecraft. Most of them use the name "OPS xxxx", with seemingly random selection of the four-digit number. A few also use "FTV xxxx".

What does these two numbers stand for, and is there any system of the numbers?

GPS


Can you show examples?

From Gunter's site: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/usa_secr.htm
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Offline Jim

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I believe OPS number is the range op number for launch
« Last Edit: 08/14/2012 03:34 pm by Jim »

Offline jcm

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JCM will have the definitive answer, but I think that OPS is not an acronym, but stands for "operations" and is simply a designation applied to an operating vehicle. I think that "FTV" stands for "flight test vehicle."

But Jonathan will have the definitive answer.

Jim and Dwayne are of course correct. OPS I believe is indeed "Operations" and it's a number assigned by the range to a launch or other flight test. It was used as a semi-random code number for missions for things like the tracking network folks who had no need-to-know about what the satellite really was.

I've also seen the designation IRON for Inter-Range Operations Number. I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing.

FTV is Flight Test Vehicle. The most common use of this is for Lockheed Agena stage numbers. Often NRO satellites were referred to in unclassified publications by the Agena's FTV designation.
For example:
  -   Payload CORONA J-2     (TOP SECRET/TK)
  -   NRO Mission 1002          (TOP SECRET/TK? I guess)
   -  FTV 1163       - Agena serial number, unclassified
    - Operations 1353    -  Range number, unclassified
    - 1963-037A           -  International Designation assigned in principle by UN COSPAR
    -  SSN 00668          - Satcat number assigned by NORAD

all of course the same vehicle!
FTV was occasionally used as an abbreviation by non Agena programs too
« Last Edit: 08/15/2012 05:52 am by jcm »
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Jonathan McDowell
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Offline jcm

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By the way, the OPS numbers are not  all *entirely* random. There are stretches of correlation between related payloads now and again. I wasted a lot of effort trying to figure it out, but in the end concluded it was a sucker's game.
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Offline Jim

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I've also seen the designation IRON for Inter-Range Operations Number. I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing.


The ops number is for the launch ranges and IRON for satellite control network
« Last Edit: 08/15/2012 12:04 pm by Jim »

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