Warsaw conference to spotlight Space Situational Awareness
As part of its EU Council presidency, Poland will host a special seminar on Space Situational Awareness on 29 September. The event is co-sponsored by ESA and aims to foster discussions toward defining Europe's future Space Situational Awareness activities.
For the first time since joining the EU in 2004, Poland is serving from July to December 2011 in the Presidency of the Council of the EU. As part of an extensive six-month programme of political, cultural and scientific initiatives, Poland's Ministry of Economy will host a special seminar devoted to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) on 29 September in Warsaw.
The seminar is co-sponsored by ESA and will bring together many of the key stakeholders in the dialogue on how Europe's future SSA capability should evolve.
Participants will include senior managers, policy-makers and scientists from ESA, ESA Member States, the EU, European institutions and international partner organisations.
The keynote address will be delivered by Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Mr Waldemar Pawlak, followed by highlight presentations from, among others, ESA's Nicolas Bobrinsky, Head of the SSA Programme, and Geraldine Naja, Head of the Director General's Office for EU Relations.
The Warsaw SSA Seminar will be held at the Holiday Inn, Warsaw, 29 September, 09:00-17:00 CEST. Full details, including the agenda and registration, are available via the links at right.
About ESA's SSA Preparatory Programme
The Agency's SSA Preparatory Programme was authorised at the November 2008 ESA Ministerial Council and formally launched on 1 January 2009. After an initial period to 2012, full operational services will be implemented in 2012–19 upon approval at the 2012 ESA Ministerial Council.
The objective of the SSA programme is to support Europe's independent use of, and access to, space through the provision of timely and accurate information, data and services regarding the space environment, and particularly regarding hazards to infrastructure in orbit and on the ground.
In general, these hazards stem from possible collisions between objects in orbit, harmful space weather and potential strikes by natural objects that cross Earth's orbit.
The SSA programme will, ultimately, enable Europe to detect, predict and assess autonomously the risk to life and property due to remnant man-made space objects, reentries, in-orbit explosions and release events, in-orbit collisions, disruption of missions and satellite-based service capabilities, potential impacts of Near-Earth Objects, and the effects of space weather phenomena on space- and ground-based infrastructure.
