SST & STM system architecture and evolutions. Horizon Europe TOP2

Project Information

HE_EUSST_STM_AE_TOP2

Grant agreement ID: 101125111

DOI

10.3030/101125111

EC signature date 1 August 2023

Start date 1 July 2023

End date 30 June 2027

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 6 000 001,25

EU contribution

€ 6 000 000,00

Coordinated by

AGENCIA ESTATAL AGENCIA ESPACIAL ESPANOLA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - HE_EUSST_STM_AE_TOP2 (SST & STM system architecture and evolutions. Horizon Europe TOP2)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Context:
EUSST (European Union Space Surveillance & Tracking) is a subcomponent of SSA (Situational Space Awareness) programme born from the need of management of the growing complexity of the orbital environment, and it is in charge of guaranteeing the safety and security of space environment either for space operations or the safeguard of space assets. This intricated orbital environment can result on a risk of collision between spacecraft and space debris. At the same time, objects may re-enter and cause damage on the ground. Therefore, the characterization of space surroundings through surveillance and tracking are essential allowing EUSST to have a broader insight of these circumstances. Currently, EUSST is providing services of Collision Avoidance (CA), Re-Entry Analysis (RE) and Fragmentation Analysis (FG).
The evolution of current system aims to cope with space surveillance challenges, so design and optimization of the architecture are essential for overcoming ongoing constraints. In order to improve service provision capabilities, this grant covers the inclusion of digital twin as a prime role to play since enables precise simulations which allows events, such as detection of malfunctions, optimization of several tasks, or repetition of past events regarding to aforementioned services. In short, the impact of the project will be:
• Increasing the EUSST scalability
• Improvement of service provision capabilities
• Increasing trustworthiness of EUSST regarding to its systems
The addition of such technology will contribute the safeguard of space assets. Moreover, EUSST will be a cornerstone for the EU STM (European Union Space Traffic Management) as it will ensure the contribution of EU for future space activities.
To reach this, several activities have been carried out to maximize the impact and contribution of EU SST towards ensuring a sustainable and guaranteed access to and use of space as well as global burden-sharing in the domain of Space Situational Awareness, accomplishing the safety and security of European economies, societies and citizens.

Overall objectives:
In order to ensure the safety of space environment and sustain Europe’s pioneering role in future missions, new activities are performed. This is the SST & STM system architecture and evolutions project, that has been implemented in the form of a Specific Grant Agreement (SGA) addressing the objectives identified in the Space Regulation and the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022 :
• Foster European cooperation in the SST domain and improve the EUSST performance towards larger autonomy.
• Highlight and propose solutions to fill the gaps in the current EUSST architecture.
• Pave the way on which the EUSST system has to evolve towards a higher level of performance, quality of service and autonomy.
• Demonstrate the complementarity, coherence and added-value of each element of EUSST system towards a more autonomous, interoperable SST system.
• Explore and look for higher levels of cooperation with other SST systems to develop long-term cooperation.
• Propose adaptation to the new changes, and solutions for their possible integration into the existing standards, practices and technological means.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The grant contributes to the European Industry and Start-Up forum, fostering a pragmatic and transparent dialogue with industry and start-ups, and to focus on reinforcing the link between the EU SST Partnership and the European industry and start-ups ecosystem in terms of operational capabilities.
R&D system evolution activities aimsaim to ensure the scalability of EU SST, in particular the SST and STM architecture in order to improve the provision of the different services of EU SST (CA, RE and FG).
To assess the evolution of SST and STM architecture, a set of activities has been performed in benefit of systems progress. From the very beginning, a set of reports had been provided to analyse the present-day SST capabilities, SST data commercialization and orbit environment for future space operations to evaluate the structure evolution.
On the other hand, digital twin development of current systems, mainly network and services, can verify its enhancement though simulation of several scenarios such as orbital dynamics and growth of orbital population Text providing a wider insight of circumstances. Furthermore, modelling network sensors enables the validation of measurements precision of a reference orbital population and evolution of this network for expansion and coverage. Ultimately, an evaluation of the modelled sensors network is performed to test attributes regarding to system’s capability and collision risk assessment between spacecrafts.
Most of the WP6 activities are carried out by the European industry by means of subcontracts. Main activities follow:
• Horizon Scanning
• Population evolution and building of a new population file
• Potential hazardous object identification and space capacity
• Architecture study evolution toward numerical twin concept
• Architecture study evolution toward numerical twin concept

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The activities are still ongoing, no significant results can be provided at this stage.