ESA will host the first European Space Surveillance Conference in Spain in June. International experts will share their latest research findings on space debris, orbital hazard detection and satellite safety.

The European Space Surveillance Conference (ESS2011) provides an opportunity for professionals working in orbital debris detection to exchange ideas, concepts and solutions to the many challenges affecting safer satellite operations in space.

Europe relies on spaceborne assets to support a wide and growing range of activities in daily life. Any shutdown or loss of services from these systems would seriously affect an enormous range of commercial and civil activities, including land, air and sea travel, maritime navigation, telecommunications, information technology and networks, broadcasting, weather prediction, climate monitoring and agricultural survey.

This space-based infrastructure is vulnerable to orbital debris. A collision with an object as small as a coin can destroy a satellite and create thousands of additional pieces of debris in the process. Efficiently solving these problems is not easy and draws upon the skills and knowledge of a wide-range of engineers, scientists and policy-makers. Teams across the globe depend on a level of interoperability that crosses professional, regional and national borders. The ESS2011 conference is designed to facilitate open discussions between these groups and serve as a catalyst toward cross-disciplinary connections.

“The development of flexible, efficient and economic solutions to the hazards posed by space debris is a challenge that affects all of us, but we aim to find novel answers that will benefit everyone,” says Emmet Fletcher, Headof the Space Surveillance Segment at ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme office.

ESA’s SSA programme is developing services and infrastructure to enable Europe to detect, predict and assess the risk to life and property due to orbital debris, remnant man-made space objects, reentries, orbital explosions and release events or in-orbit collisions.

It will also provide services to monitor the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based assets and to watch for potential impacts of near-Earth objects.

ESS2011 will be held 7-9 June 2011 in Madrid, Spain. The conference will be hosted by ESA and co-chaired by international experts. Delegates from ESA, NASA and the French, German, UK, Japanese and Italian space agencies, as well as the private and public sectors, are expected to attend. EESS2011 will cover areas related to the creation of a common catalogue, such as object surveillance and tracking, orbit determination, propagation and correlation.

Topics will also include collision warning, interoperability and standards, and the overarching issues of governance, data policies and legal issues.

More information on the conference and details on the venue and registration can be found via the link at top right or via the Congrex website here.

Conference calendar

Deadline for abstract submission – 28 March
Notification to authors – 18 April
Deadline for online early registration – 2 May
Preliminary programme published – 2 May
Deadline paper submission – 23 May
Deadline online late registration – 1 June
European space surveillance conference – 7-9 June
Distribution of proceedings CD-ROM – 1 August

Contact for further information

Emmet Fletcher
Head, SSA-SST Segment
Email: emmet.fletcher [@] esa.int
Tel: +34 91 81 31 508
ESA Conference Bureau
P.O. Box 299
2200 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands

Phone: +31 71 565 5005
Fax: +31 71 565 5658
Email: esa.conference.bureau@esa.int