The mission of the Space Situational Awareness Centre in Uedem in the Lower Rhine region is to create a space situational awareness picture. This is the result of analysing and evaluating data and information from space observation, using national institutional and commercial capabilities in close cooperation with international experts and institutions.
Objects in space are continuously recorded, identified, classified, technically analysed and their orbits determined in order to obtain the space situational awareness picture. Space weather is also taken into account in the creation of the space situational awareness image, whereby the influences of physical environmental conditions on space-based systems and terrestrial structures are taken into account.
The main tasks of the Space Situational Awareness Centre include the analysis and evaluation of imminent collision scenarios between space objects and the warning to the population of possible risks arising from the atmospheric re-entry of space debris. The Space Situational Awareness Centre also supports policymakers in space-related issues.
Accurate and reliable knowledge of the situation in space is a fundamental prerequisite for detecting and analysing all relevant objects in near-Earth space. It therefore serves to protect critical space-based infrastructure and at the same time ensures the availability of the relevant services and products.
In future, data from the German space radar GESTRA (German Experimental Space Surveillance and Tracking Radar) will also be analysed at the Space Situational Awareness Centre. The German, partially mobile radar system will monitor objects in low-Earth orbit around the clock and contribute to the national and European orbital data catalogue operated at the Space Situational Awareness Centre.
The Space Situational Awareness Centre is a civil-military facility of the Space Command of the German Armed Forces and the German Space Agency at DLR. It is operated in coordination with the Federal Ministry of Defence (BMVg) and the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).
Link:
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
German Space Agency at DLR
E-Mail contact-dlr@DLR.de
