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
Quote from: Galactic Penguin SST on 08/14/2012 03:17 pmWhile 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?GPSCan you show examples?
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.
I've also seen the designation IRON for Inter-Range Operations Number. I'm not sure if it's exactly the same thing.