How does Satellite track package release dates

Situation: I would like to have the ability to pick an arbitrary date to clone my channels to (for Dev, Q/A, etc...) I know that regardless of when I create my parent/child channels from the Red Hat repos, the packages will line up with the clone date I select. (i.e. if I build a new Satellite today and import all of the RHEL 6 packages/errata/etc... I could potentially create a clone channel back to Jan of 2013 and all the packages will be from Jan 2013.

My issue is: if I built my Satellite today and imported a 3rd party repo (say EPEL for example), is Satellite capable of matching all the RHEL packages/errata as well as the EPEL for that given date? If so, how is this done? Is there a rpm field that is used?

The reason I ask: I have built a Spacewalk environment to do some testing and tried to manually import the entire CentOS tree and when I create my clones by providing a date, it seems as though it just mirrors the existing state of the source.

NOTE: please feel free to ask for clarification as I am struggling to even ask this in a way that makes sense ;-)