towards a future european space surveillance system space is characterized by the fact that the...

Towards a Future European Space Towards a Future European Space Surveillance SystemSurveillance System

Space is characterized by the fact that the competences are scarcely distributed among nations

As long as this will be the case, collective security hardly possible


Collective space situation awareness: one mean to share resources

The main issue: think about how to start the process realistically that will prove to be constructive politically


Agreement on the fact that, on a 30-40 years timescale, main trends must be taken into account:

The space landscape will be deeply transformed– More and more traffic with new orbital management techniques

constellations, formation flying, etc)– More and more diverse players and stakeholders– Space applications more and more devoted to societal security

issues

Main trends make the space surveillance capability become a logical prerequisite for future investments in space


In Europe, the space surveillance collective capability naturally fits into the global “space for security” picture

It makes sense in the context of the European process

– Idea of a political maturity: Europe must assume its political identity through collective security projects

– Based on the traditional engine of the European construction, i.e. R&D (CERN, Euratom tradition)

– Space as a provider of soft power in a context where a common ESDP remains difficult


European experience of multilateral security thinking can prove inspirational for this collective endeavour

– Europe is used to think in cooperative terms

– Allows to collate national competences at the regional level via several procedures

Multinational experience already at hand ESA has a specific experience in pooling resources coming from

different national backgrounds


Multinational experience and competence– Graves/Monge : Graves fully operational since 2005

One of the main effort : better cataloguing capabilities

– FGAN/TIRA– British radar capabilities

– Formed the base for recent ESA studies conducted about the design of a European Space Surveillance System


From space surveillance to space situation awareness

Several functions need to be performed to be coherent with the future challenges

– Knowing the orbital parameters– Predict the passage, the possible fall on the Earth – Recognize any new objects in orbit– Recognize manoeuvers– Predict collision courses– Identify satellites

Correspond to the future« Space landscape »

Challenges that affect Security


A first system envisioned for 2010 with some upgrade made in 2015 would reach 1700 km range and bring some 98% LEO coverage while the GEO strategy, based on the use of 3/4 sites distributed globally, would offer a 95% Geo coverage at the 2015 horizon.

– [Donath (T.), Brousse (P.), Laycock (J.), Michal (T.), Ameline (P.), Leushacke (L.), Proposal for a European Space Surveillance System, presented in ESTEC, 2005]


main challenge : – to maintain a catalogue of orbital objects providing a genuine analytical

capability– Any survey and cataloguing strategy requires repeated and updated observation

of space objects to secure correct orbital data, to better identify un-catalogued objects and to task observation for catalogue maintenance and manoeuvre identifications

European opportunity:– Cooperative technical solutions or strategies would pay off very quickly here by

offering participating states improved data collection, which in turn can provide better space management capabilities or even better security assessments.

– Given the increased space activity expected for the years to come, interest of having a cooperative system on the regional scale that can contribute to SSA on a world scale once monitoring assets and cataloguing capabilities are fully operational.

towards a future european space surveillance system space is characterized by the fact that the...

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