Status and Progress in the Space Surveillance and Tracking Segment of ESA's Space Situational Awareness Programme

摘要

In November 2008, the European Space Agency (ESA) Council at Ministerial level approved the start of ESA's Space Situational Awareness programme. Between 2009 and 2012 a preparatory phase will run that will develop the architectural design of the system, the governance and data policy and the provision of precursor services in the areas of: Space Surveillance and Tracking, Space Weather and Near Earth Objects. This paper will concentrate on the first of these segments: Space Surveillance and Tracking. It will develop the following main topics: Customer requirements and their integration, the initiation of an integrated catalogue, extension of correlated data to service provision and international cooperation and data fusion The development of the services resulting from these points will be a key driver in the final architecture. This architecture will be proposed at the next Ministerial Council to further develop a full SSA system from 2012 onwards.