Under the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, Europe is acquiring the capability to independently watch for objects and natural phenomena that could harm satellites in orbit or infrastructure – such as power grids – on the ground. To achieve this, ESA's SSA programme is focusing on three main areas:
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SST - Space surveillance and tracking of objects in Earth orbit
Watching for active and inactive satellites, discarded launch stages and fragmentation debris that orbit the Earth. -
SWE - Space weather
Monitoring conditions at the Sun and in the solar wind, and in Earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere, that can affect space-borne and ground-based infrastructure or endanger human life or health. -
NEO - Near-Earth objects
Detecting natural objects that can potentially impact Earth and cause damage.
Each of these is being implemented as a 'segment', analogous to the dedicated 'ground segment' – the computers and other resources on the ground – that traditionally support each ESA satellite in space.
