On 1 July 2023, the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) has officially taken responsibility to manage and operate the Programme’s Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) Front Desk, following a European Commission’s Decision of 3 June 2022. The new premises of the SST Front Desk are located at EUSPA’s Galileo Security Monitoring Centre (GSMC) in San Martín de la Vega, Madrid, Spain.
The SST Front Desk manages the SST Portal, which is the interface for the provision of EU SST services. It has an operational team that supports users of these services, including spacecraft owners and operators, EU institutions and EU Member States, among others. The Front Desk also performs activities related to user coordination and engagement, service performance, and communication.
SST Front Desk: what has changed
The responsibility for the EU SST Front Desk has been transferred from the European Union Satellite Centre (SatCen), which has worked closely with EUSPA to set up the required IT infrastructure and the related applications, as well as on the handover of operational information in order to ensure the continuity of the SST services. The transfer was performed as to minimise as much as possible the impact on SST users. Following the switch-over, the services are being provided as expected, and the new contact details of the EU SST Helpdesk have been communicated to users.
Rodrigo da Costa, EUSPA’s Executive Director, stated: “I am pleased to announce the completion of the smooth handover process and the integration of the EU SST Front Desk operations into EUSPA. This success was possible not only with the hard work of the EUSPA teams, but also with the trust of the European Commission and the collaboration of the EU Satellite Centre. The EU SST Front Desk will be a key asset for EUSPA’s mission, as we expand our competencies within the EU Space Programme to its Space Situational Awareness component – crucial to safeguard space infrastructure – and further support the future of Space Traffic Management in the EU, which will contribute to ensuring a safe and sustainable use of space”.
Cooperation with the SST Partnership
The SST services are provided by the SST Partnership through EUSPA. The Partnership is composed of 15 EU Member States, which form the SST Cooperation together with EUSPA. Currently EU SST provides space safety services to more than 190 organisations and protects more than 400 satellites from the risk of collision with space debris or other operational satellites. EU SST also detects and monitors break-ups in space and the uncontrolled re-entry of space objects into Earth’s atmosphere.