Solar System processing (SSP)#

The DP2 Solar System products concentrate on associations between Rubin DiaSource observations and previously known objects. They are known-object products, not a blind moving-object search or an orbit catalog derived from DP2 observations alone. DP2 delivers the associated observations in SSSource and Rubin-derived object-level photometry and summary quantities in SSObject. It also provides three auxiliary snapshots adopted from the Minor Planet Center (MPC) PostgreSQL database.

Rubin searched for and discovered new Solar System objects during Pre-DP2 Solar System Processing. That campaign preceded the official DP2 Data Release processing, so objects discovered by Rubin and reported to the MPC before the association cutoff can occur in the DP2 known-object products. DP2 does not, however, deliver a standalone catalog of Rubin discoveries. The Prompt Processing discoveries will be described separately, and future Data Releases will deliver discovery catalogs.

DP2 provides five Solar System tables:

Table	Purpose
SSSource	One row per association between a `DiaSource` and a known object’s predicted position, with selected measured and ephemeris quantities.
SSObject	One row per recovered known object, with observation summaries, per-band absolute-magnitude fits, and selected orbit-derived quantities.
mpc_orbits	An MPC orbit-catalog snapshot containing orbital elements and associated fit information.
current_identifications	An MPC mapping of primary and secondary provisional designations for the same physical object.
numbered_identifications	An MPC mapping between permanent numbers and primary provisional designations.

The three MPC tables retain the upstream MPC field semantics rather than being recomputed from DP2 observations. The delivered mpc_orbits reference product is the same 2026 March 13 MPC snapshot that was used as input to association.