European Space Agency - ESA’s Post

✍️x3️⃣ As ESA’s presence in Spain is set to be strengthened, three contracts with Spanish industry were signed today that build towards a Zero Debris future: 🔸Upgrading the Spanish Space Surveillance and Tracking Surveillance Radar (S3TSR) The S3TSR conducts a continuous 24/7 scanning of the sky for the detection and daily monitoring of thousands of space debris objects, providing a key European space surveillance and tracking capability. The new contract, signed by Indra Space director Luis Mayo and ESA Director of Operations Rolf Densing, unlocks a major upgrade of the radar that will allow the doubling of the number of objects detected, making space operations even safer and significantly boosting Spain’s contribution to European space safety efforts. The project shows the fruitful results of entrusting the management of a national space surveillance and tracking project to ESA. 🔸ESA-AEE cooperation on the CAT Mission ESA has started to prepare satellites with standard interfaces for capture and removal to simplify removing debris from orbit. Practicing the removal of such prepared satellites in space is a key step to make the goal of Zero Debris by 2030 achievable for our new missions. In this context, ESA and Agencia Espacial Española, represented by Rolf Densing and Juan Carlos Cortés respectively, intend to collaborate on ESA’s CAT in-orbit demonstration mission. The CApTure Payload Bay (CAT) mission, being built by Spanish company GMV, will demonstrate ESA’s new standardised interface for capture and removal. LUR-1 – a Spanish satellite already in space with the interface onboard – will now be proposed as the target satellite for CAT to test the removal technologies and operations in space. More on ESA’s CAT mission 👉 https://lnkd.in/eQsbTNms 🔸Agencia Espacial Española signs the Zero Debris Charter It is always exciting to welcome another signatory to the Zero Debris community! Minister of Science and Innovation Diana Morant Ripoll, in the presence of ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, signed the Zero Debris Charter as the AEE President, showing the Agency’s commitment to a sustainable future in space. The fast-growing Zero Debris community (https://lnkd.in/drTuSh35) now counts over 180 signatories across 33 countries, including 20 national governments. Let’s go! 📸 Credit: ESA/Javier Estrada ESA Space Safety