Tag Archives: Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

With the construction of a new research observatory, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) is taking the next step in determining the nature and trajectory of objects in low-Earth orbit as quickly, precisely and reliably as possible.

The Russian state space corporation Roscosmos is to develop a low-Earth orbit (LEO) space surveillance satellite that will help monitor space debris and should be launched by 2027, according to a senior Roscosmos official in remarks to the TASS news agency on 28 May 2020.

There are an estimated 900,000 pieces of space debris larger than 1 cm orbiting the Earth, with only a small proportion of them tracked.

U.S. Space Command took another step in expanding its international space data sharing network; this time with the nation of Peru on 20 May 2020.

Japan’s establishment of the Space Domain Mission Unit, which is planned to become fully operational in 2023, reflects the country’s increasing reliance on space systems to meet its security needs. It could emerge as a key actor in the defence of space assets in the Indo-Pacific.

LeoLabs, Inc., a leading commercial provider of low Earth orbit (LEO) tracking and space situational awareness (SSA) services, introduced LeoLabs Collision Avoidance, a ground-breaking platform for automating and modernizing satellite operations, aimed at addressing the threat of orbital space debris.

The TsNIIMash rocket and spacecraft scientific center has confirmed the destruction in the earth’s orbit of tanks of the Russian Fregat-SB upper stage, the press service of Roscosmos space agency told TASS on Sunday, 10 May 2020.

In partnership with the Australian Ministry of Defense, the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) Program recently achieved “first light” on 5 March 2020, reaching a key milestone after it was moved from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico to Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station in Western Australia.

The rapidly growing new space startup Rhea Space Activity (RSA), headquartered in Washington DC and with operations in Colorado Springs, has been tapped by the United States Air Force (USAF) to develop a wholly new field of intelligence to surveil "cislunar" space - that is, the volume of space between the Earth and the Moon.

The inaugural Space Café WebTalk happened on 31 March 2020, featuring Professor Moriba Jah, associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin, in conversation with Torsten Kriening, co-publisher of SpaceWatch.Global and COO of ThorGroup GmbH.