The European Commission presented the main actions of the new Industry and Start-ups Forum (EISF) on Space Traffic Management (STM) in a press release published on Thursday 5 May.
The forum, launched on 26 April by the Commission in collaboration with the European Space Surveillance and Tracking Consortium (EU SST), was announced in the context of the recent joint communication between the European Commission and the European External Action Service (EEAS) presented in mid-February on Space Traffic Management (see EUROPE 12891/4).
The ambition of the forum is to connect the space industry and start-ups with the EU SST Consortium and the decision-makers of DG DEFIS, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space.
More specifically, the underlying objectives are: - to improve the performance of existing services and develop new innovative services (to track and detect objects above 10 cm); - to implement actions in the framework of the CASSINI initiative to support start-ups; - to give industry access to the Space Situational Awareness data-sharing platform by 2023, and to parts of the future EU SST catalogue by 2025.
According to our information, at the launch last week, Pascal Faucher, Chair of the EU SST Consortium, said that the Consortium was growing and would soon have 15 Member States. He added that EU SST had adopted a new strategy to encourage innovation with increased subcontracting and saw potential synergies with the European Defence Fund.
However, the Chair expressed a sense of great urgency about the dynamism of the private sector across the Atlantic. In his view, the EU must rapidly develop commercial Space Situational Awareness (SSA) capabilities and services. European autonomy is at stake, he insisted.
Indeed, some concerns have been raised, notably about US standardisation efforts within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in the field of Space Traffic Management. The issue of Space Situational Awareness is closely linked to Space Traffic Management.
The French Presidency of the EU Council is making progress in this area, but remains particularly cautious in the face of a certain reluctance on the part of several national delegations (see EUROPE 12943/12). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)