Comment 13 for bug 1291005

This is not a bug at all. Osculating orbital elements for minor planets are valid for a rather short time only, as every observer should know. This is the reason for having a feature (the solar system editor plugin) to update orbital elements, just like many other desktop planetaria have this feature. I am not aware of analytic models for orbits of asteroids similar to VSOP87, if somebody can provide it, we may consider adding it.

The online resources usually give "current" elements for observing here and now. I give the question back: Where could we download past elements? How could we date historical photographs of asteroids with software if we don't have historical elements?

The only thing we can change may be providing current elements with every new release. This should go into the release checklist.