Ibadan, 4 July 2023. – The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA), as of 1 July, will begin operating the Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) Front Desk following a European Commission’s Decision of 3 June 2022. This follows the European Union’s objective to take a holistic approach to Space Traffic Management to address the issue of space congestion.
The EU SST Front Desk team will continue interfacing with SST users – which include spacecraft owners and operators, EU institutions, and EU Member States. The team will support them in using the dedicated Portal and benefitting from their services. The Front Desk also provides service performance information to certain stakeholders and promotes the use of SST services.
Together with the EU SST Partnership, comprising 15 EU Member States, EUSPA will support the provision of space safety services to more than 190 registered organizations. Furthermore, the Agency will contribute to the coordination of space traffic by protecting more than 400 satellites from the risk of collision with space debris or other operational satellites. Moreover, they will be detecting and monitoring break-ups in space and the uncontrolled re-entry of space objects into Earth’s atmosphere.
Speaking on this, EUSPA Executive Director Rodrigo da Costa commented, “By managing the EU SST front desk, EUSPA contributes to the EU Space Traffic Management approach to support developing an EU strategy to ensure the safe and sustainable use of space while preserving the EU space industry’s competitiveness.”
Likewise, Pascal Faucher, Chairman, EU SST Partnership, Defence and Security, CNES, added, “The EU SST Partnership commits to delivering public services in collision avoidance, re-entry, and fragmentation analysis, through the EU SST Front Desk, to improve the safety of space operations and contribute to the long-term sustainability of outer space activities.”
