Browse Resources by Country

2015 – European Commercial Space Surveillance – Snapshot

Collision avoidance is gaining the attention of commercial satellite operators as the Earth’s orbits continue to become more congested. A non-profit association of satellite operators from the Isle of Man, the Space Data Association, offers conjunction assessment services to its members. The automated space situational awareness system, operated under contract by AGI, came fully online in 2011 and is intended to aid space operators by alerting them about possible on-orbit collisions and radio frequency interference.

2015 – France: SSA – Snapshot

SSA operations in France are shared by the French Air Force and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). The missions for French SSA activities are similar to U.S. military efforts, attempting to catalog all low Earth orbiting objects for collision and launch avoidance. The French do use U.S. SSA-provided data, but they augment the data with data from their own systems.

2015 – ESA: SSA – Snapshot

The European Space Agency is funding its own SSA program, mandated in 2008, launched in 2009, and funded through 2016. Europe’s increasing dependence on space-based services and infrastructure was a key factor in developing alternatives to non-European SSA sources. ESA’s SSA activities involve more than observing and tracking Earth orbiting objects.