N° 12–2017: Call for Media: European conference on space debris risks and mitigation

Media are invited to attend the overall conference, in particular the opening presentations and the concluding press conference.

Today, around 750 000 objects larger than 1 cm are orbiting Earth. At average speeds of 40 000 km/h, impacts on space hardware would deliver roughly the energy equivalent to the explosion of a hand grenade. Consequences for our operational satellites could be severe.

About 18 000 of these pieces of debris are large enough to be regularly monitored by powerful surveillance systems. Such monitoring data are used by space agencies such as ESA to avoid collisions. The majority of these objects have been generated by more than 250 explosions.

With the increase in the number of objects in space, experts believe that collisions among these objects, some of which have already occurred, might become the primary source for new fragments in orbit. Experts have proposed countermeasures that would mitigate this problem. However, significant challenges are faced by spacefaring organisations to implement these measures.

The 7th European Conference on Space Debris is the largest gathering in the world on this topic. The conference will be opened by ESA Director General Jan Woerner and NASA’s former orbital debris chief scientist Donald Kessler.

Highlight talks will address acute issues like the current practice in implementing debris avoidance measures, novel concepts for the active removal of debris, and the deployment of large constellations of several thousand satellites for telecommunications. Finally, the proliferation of small satellites, CubeSats and nanosatellite swarms will be addressed.

The topics of megaconstellations, active removal and European efforts toward space situational awareness and surveillance, measurements and modelling will be addressed. The important issue of atmospheric reentry survival and the risk on the ground as well as aspects of hypervelocity impacts in space will be discussed by top global experts.

Programme

Below is an outline programme for media. While journalists may attend all technical sessions, the slots listed below are recommended for non-specialist media.

18 April, 09:30–12:00

Streamed live via: http://www.esa.int/spacedebris

Opening ceremony

Welcome addresse by Jan Woerner, Director General of ESA and introduction by Rolf Densing, ESA Director of Operations and Head of ESOC

• Video address by Thomas Pesquet, French ESA astronaut on the International Space Station
• Introduction by Holger Krag, Chair of the Programme Committee and Head of the ESA Space Debris Office
• Premiere of a 3D movie on space debris
• Highlight Lecture by Donald Kessler, NASA

Plenary session moderated by Manuel Metz, DLR, and Christian Cazeaux, CNES

• Hugh Lewis (University of Southampton): Sensitivity of the Space Debris Environment to Large Constellations and Small Satellites
• J.C. Liou (head of NASA Orbital Debris Program Office): Highlights of recent Research Activities at the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office
• Satomi Kawamoto (JAXA): Current Status of Research and Development on Active Debris Removal at JAXA
• Thomas Schildknecht (AIUB): Determining and Modeling Space Debris Attitude States by Fusing Data from different Observation Techniques.

On 19–20 April a series of technical sessions and workshops will take place, which the media are welcome to attend. Details are described in the programme: http://space-debris-conference.com/page/programme.

21 April, 11:00–13:00

Concluding press conference with Q&A session

At the ESOC press centre, the main points of discussion and overall conclusions of the four-day conference will be presented to the press.

Participants:

• Brigitte Zypries, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, German national aerospace coordinator 
• Rolf Densing, ESA Director of Operations and Head of ESOC Establishment
• Conference chair Holger Krag, Head of ESA Space Debris Office, and senior panellists from COSPAR, IAA, CNES, DLR, ASI, UKSA (further names tbc).

Streamed live via: http://www.esa.int/spacedebris

Media registration and further details

Mandatory registration for Media until 11 April the latest via: https://myconvento.com/public/event_register/index/1622911

The detailed conference programme with all technical sessions, on conference venues, technical background material and abstract submissions via the ESA Conference Bureau: https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/page/programme

More on ESA's space debris research, findings, models, regulatory aspects, videos, web streaming replay:http://www.esa.int/spacedebris

Interview requests (for Media ONLY):

Corporate Communication Office
European Space Agency
Robert-Bosch-Str. 5
64293 Darmstadt / Germany
Tel: +49 6151 902516 / +49 6151 902285
Email: esoc.communication@esa.int

About the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovenia is an Associate Member.

ESA has established formal cooperation with six Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with EUMETSAT for the development of meteorological missions.

ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.

Today, it develops and launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space. ESA also has a strong applications programme developing services in the Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications domain.

Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int

For further information, please contact:

ESA Media Relations Office

Tel: +33 1 53 69 72 99

Email: media@esa.int