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The ESA SSA Programme aims, ultimately, to enable Europe to autonomously detect, predict and assess the risk to life and property due to man-made space debris objects, reentries, in-orbit explosions and release events, in-orbit collisions, disruption of missions and satellite-based service capabilities, potential impacts of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), and the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based infrastructure.
The objective of the SSA programme is to support Europe's independent utilisation of, and access to, space through the provision of timely and accurate information and data regarding the space environment, and particularly regarding hazards to infrastructure in orbit and on the ground.
In general, these hazards stem from possible collisions between objects in orbit, harmful space weather and potential strikes by natural objects, such as asteroids, that cross Earth’s orbit.
ESA's SSA programme is focusing on three main areas:
- Space Weather (SWE): monitoring conditions at the Sun and in the solar wind, and in Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere, that can affect spaceborne and ground-based infrastructure or endanger human life or health.
- Near-Earth Objects (NEO): detecting natural objects that can potentially impact Earth and cause damage
- Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST): watching for active and inactive satellites, discarded launch stages and fragmentation debris orbiting Earth.
Each of these activities is being developed as 'segment' (analogous to a satellite's traditional 'ground segment') in parallel sets of capabilities and services, supported by data centres and a Tasking Centre with contributions by existing European infrastructure.
