Testbed telescope

The Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) segment of ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme is currently using a Testbed Telescope – seen here installed at the Agency’s existing tracking station site in Cebreros, Spain – to test space debris tracking techniques and software.

The telescope can also work together with the programme's Near-Earth Object Segment (NEO) segment to develop the hardware and processing technologies needed to detect asteroids that come close to Earth.