Contributing IIRV Message Format Reader/Writer

Orekit development
1

Hello!

For a project I’m working on, I’ve written a module with Orekit to read/write IIRV data messages, and I wanted to gauge interest on contributing this feature to Orekit itself.

For context, IIRV messages are a fairly common file format that are primarily used to communicate spacecraft state information for tracking via ground station or satellite networks. Documentation about them is a bit sparse, probably the best source is the NASA Ground Network Tracking and Acquisition Data Handbook). Currently IIRV writing is supported by STK and FreeFlyer, but as far as I know, there is not free or open source way to read or write these files (hence why building this tool off Orekit was the way we chose to go). The use case for IIRV files is a bit niche overall, but having this capability has been useful for us since IIRVs are so widely supported across various ground station networks.

Is this a feature you would be interested in?

Thanks!

2 Likes
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Hi @nick.lafarge welcome,

Adding new data exchange capabilities is definitely something we love to see in Orekit.
There is page dedicating to contributing
The page about governance is also worth reading as it explains some legal aspects the project needs before accepting a contribution (mainly we need a license from the intellectual property owner before we can publish code).

Looking forward for this contribution!

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Hi @nick.lafarge ,

That would indeed be appricated, I have had some thoughts to dig into this but have not come to action :slight_smile: I have not found any open source tool that can handle this format, not much info on it at all expect that spec that you refer to, that has been my key document as well.