Tag Archives: Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has announced it is investing AUS$35 million (U.S.$25.5 million) in space technology and Artificial Intelligence development.

Uzbekistan is discussing the joint development, manufacture, and operation of a communications satellite with Russia and Kazakhstan, according to media reports in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organisation (APSCO), China intends to promote satellite imagery sharing with other member states for applications such as urban planning, disaster monitoring and assessment, as well as resource management and surveying.

Russian scientists, with the support of the Russian government, intend to place a number of ground-based observatories in the Nenets Autonomous Region on Russia's Northwest Arctic Ocean coast for the purposes of providing space situational awareness (SSA) of satellites and space debris in Polar orbits as the pass over the Arctic region, according to a report published on 7 November 2018 by the Russian news agency, TASS.

The UK’s Goonhilly Earth Station has opened an office in Farnborough, UK, as part of its expansion plans to offer consultancy, design, engineering, and small-scale manufacturing services to the global space and satellite sector.

U.S. commercial space situational awareness (SSA) company LeoLabs has announced that it will build a phased array radar in New Zealand in order to track satellites, debris, and other objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Australia’s Buccaneer Risk Mitigation Mission Cubesat, a joint mission between the Australian Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), has performed according to plan since its launch in late 2017 and is paving the way for follow-on Buccaneer missions.

As part of a whole-of-government effort, the Japanese government is considering building and launching space-based Space Situational Awareness (SSA) satellites to better monitor space debris and anti-satellite threats against Japanese satellites, according to a report in Japan News.

The growing problem of space debris has been highlighted as a priority by Japanese Defence Minister, Itsunori Onodera, who has promised strengthened cooperation with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in order to address the challenge.

South Korea is considering joining the quest to clean up space debris in Earth orbit, and with it could end up unintentionally developing a dual-use antisatellite (ASAT) system. Following similar recent efforts by Japan and Europe, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information Communication Technology (ICT) held a meeting last week with industry, universities, and institutes in Seoul to discuss technologies to monitor the rising threat of space junk, as well as the development of technologies to remove space debris in Earth's orbit.