The number of space debris orbiting the Earth is increasing at an outstanding pace pushed by a boost on the number of launches in the past few years. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that a total of almost 10,000 tons of material is currently orbiting our planet, including over a million objects bigger than 1 cm. GMV is a world-leading light in the study, monitoring, and prevention of space debris to safeguard future space sustainability.
Most recently, GMV signed two contracts with the Portuguese Ministry of Defense to carry out two research and development activities in the scope of the Portuguese Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) system contributing to the EU SST. On one hand GMV will study adaptations and improvements of the EU SST database and catalogue, which is evolving as well as the impact in the Portuguese SST system. On the other hand GMV will study the implementation of new services and future space environment in the scope of the EU SST program. This is part of the analysis of the potential extension of the so-called basic EU SST services (collision, re-entry and fragmentation) and evaluation of other new services. This is a clear opportunity to propose and participate in these new services reinforcing the role of Portugal as part of the EU SST Consortium.
For Teresa Ferreira, Director of Space, Portugal at GMV, “We are proud to continue supporting the EU-SST program and in particular the national capacity building and contribution to the study, monitoring, and prevention of space debris to safeguard future space sustainability.”
All in all, over 80 GMV engineers currently work at GMV on SSA/SST activities in 7 European countries, making it the largest SSA/SST industry and team in Europe. GMV works intensively in this field for ESA (in Spain, France, Germany, the UK, Romania, Poland and Portugal), for the EU SST (in Spain, France, Germany, Romania, Poland and Portugal), as well as in the commercial sector (providing collision avoidance services to more than 10 operators and more than 80 satellites through it focusoc operations centre) and in the military space domain.
for more information visit: www.gmv.com