European Union Space Surveillance & Tracking (EU SST): State of Play and Perspectives

The European Union (EU) has put in place a unique multilateral governance model for its EU Space Surveillance & Tracking (EU SST) capability, which reconciles the need for increased autonomy in ensuring the resilience of space-based infrastructure for the European community with the requirements posed by sovereign security concerns. Implemented by a consortium of EU member states, EU SST has been in operation since 2016, and today it serves a growing user community of European organisations with SST services including Collision Avoidance. The participating entities channel diverse contributions into an operational sensor, data sharing, and service provision framework, while integrating the European ecosystem of industry and research and development. From the perspective of the EU SST partners, this paper reviews recent governance and operations, and highlights emerging developments in light of the European Union space programme, including its intersections with Space Traffic Management.