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7.3.1 Space as infrastructure
The European utilisation of space, for research or services, depends on the capability to safely operate the space infrastructures
and any full shutdown of even a part of it would have major consequences for economic activities and would impair the
organisation of emergency services as well as the management of crisis phases. Given the increased dependency on spacebased
services for a wide range of applications and the scale and cost of investment, space assets per se are to be seen as a
major critical infrastructure and need to be protected.
Increasing Space Situational Awareness (SSA), defi ned as the comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the
population of space objects, the space environment and existing threats/risks, is therefore of key importance to Europe.
The European Space Policy states that Europe should protect its space-based capabilities against disruption given that the
economy and security of Europe and its citizens are increasingly dependent on them.
SSA can thus be seen as a basis for any future measures (political, diplomatic, regulatory and technical) to guarantee access
to space. Any disturbance may not be exclusively related to space debris. The drivers for SSA are possible consequences of
interruption of space services.
There is a need to build at European level a common response to protect space assets joining national and EU, both civil
and military eff orts.
SECURITY AND SOCIETY Development of an autonomous space situational
awareness capability for Europe and integrated specialized
space applications and services
RESEARCH INTO DISTRIBUTED CAPABILITIES Spreading tasks over number of satellites (constellation and
formation fl ying architecture, components and on-orbit
networking, automated on-board data fusion algorithms)
INNOVATION Satellite health monitoring; securing space assets, multisensor
common operational picture, protection of critical
infrastructures
Table 6: Main issues to consider avoiding disruption of space services
An analysis of the space based technologies, sensors, architectures and services for SSA European capability is needed. Initial
programs at ESA and supporting activities in the Space FP7 Theme are just starting with the participation of EDA to incorporate
the military needs. It is certain the exponential growing of the global market in space systems and satellite –enabled applications
therefore, there is a strong need to further develop the SSA infrastructure as in the future.
7.4 Conclusions
This chapter listed a number of challenges and research requirements for improving situation awareness in future confl icts and crisis
situations. Their complexity comes from the fact that the citizen is the subject of security operations and proper balance must be
found between increased security and social acceptance of it. Technology platforms will enable and largely improve capabilities in
this respect but of course cannot replace the human dimension in many respects, (manpower, decision-making, governance, etc)
In order to leverage surveillance of public spaces, indoor environments and vital infrastructure, improved techniques and
novel methods need to be developed and deployed. This combines diff erent modalities by fusing data from a wide range of
sensors including GPS, CCTV, IR, radar, piezoelectric, THz (which see through diff erent materials), seismic and acoustic sensors.
A particular challenge is to separate dangerous objects from harmless. Integrity aspects of using such sensors need to be
considered. There is a clear need to improve the sensing capabilities together with a better integration and management of
sensors and platform to rapidly and effi ciently respond to the security context.
ESRIF FINAL REPORT - PART 2 • Working Group: Situation Awareness and the Role of Space