European Space Agency

In its Resolution entitled “Europe and Space” of 17 January 2002, the European Parliament requested the European Commission to produce a White Paper on space “setting out the main objectives of the policy to be implemented in the medium and long term.”. In consequence and as a step towards the White Paper, the European Commission, in cooperation with ESA, elaborated a Green Paper on Space Policy, which was adopted by the Commission3 on 21 January 2003. The objective of this document was to stimulate a European-wide debate on the issue and launch a process meant to gather inputs from all relevant actors in Europe. The consultation process following the publication of the Green Paper has been organised by the EC/ESA Joint Task Force. The present document is an EC/ESA joint report on the consultations, to be presented to the Joint Task Force. This report will lead the way to the White Paper (including an action plan), to be elaborated by the European Commission in cooperation with ESA.
The opening conference in Brussels on 6 March was followed by a series of five consultation workshops, taking the debate to member states’ capitals (Madrid, Berlin, Rome, London and Prague). The Greek Presidency of the European Union also convened a special workshop in Athens for 8/9th May, which concentrated on a discussion of security matters.

This paper presents an ontology architecture concept for the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Program. It incorporates the author‘s domain ontology, The Space Situational Awareness Ontology and related ontology work. I summarize computational ontology, discuss the segments of ESA SSA, and introduce an option for a modular ontology framework reflecting the divisions of the SSA program. Among other things, ontologies are used for data sharing and integration. By applying ontology to ESA data, the ESA may better achieve its integration and innovation goals, while simultaneously improving the state of peaceful SSA.

European Space Policy (ESP) in May 2007  put as priority the need to improve coordination and synergies between defence and civilian space programmes and technologies, in a user-driven approach and to set up a structured dialogue with all actors involved.Has the  responsible for the ESDP body the necessary means to address these challenges?

This Impact Report identifies and summarises the diverse impacts, resulting from the £500m of UK funding of Science and Technology in 2013, using numerous quantitative metrics and short case study extracts.  It shows how the varied impacts of a national science and technology organization and its many funded programmes can be annually identified, captured, tracked, and summarised in a public document.

The report was produced for, and by, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) -  the UK Research Council responsible for funding: (1) all UK astronomy, particle and nuclear physics research, (2) related UK science and technology facilities (e.g. as Harwell and Daresbury), (3) the UK contribution to international science (e.g. CERN, international telescopes and space missions), (4) innovation and business spin-off programmes, and (5) UK public engagement activities.

The Report was co-researched and co-authored by the STFC Impact Team, including myself while Impact Evaluation Manager in 2013, with Dr. Claire Dougan-McCallie (lead author/Head of Impact) and Jenny Beard, with additional input from senior managers, and many data and case study contributions from other key managers across STFC.

Varied key impacts are identified and reported including:

• Research amongst the best (by citation impact) in astronomy, nuclear and particle physics.
• Supported research of 226 Principal Investigators in 70 universities, led to 1,100 peer-reviewed papers in 2012.
• Facilities (the Diamond Light Source, ISIS and CLF) were used in 2012/13 by over 4,200 unique users , in over 2,400 experiments, producing over 1,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

• Technology from CERN benefited the UK economy by over £100 billion every year.
• Funding the development of the UK’s space, internet and computer animation industries, returned over £500 billion to the UK economy per annum.
• Funded Innovation Campuses hosted over 230 enterprises and supported over 5,000 jobs.
• UK industry won £43 million in contracts from the international subscriptions funded, and had accumulated a total of £150 million since 2005.

• Funded research inspired future generations to study STEM subjects, attracting 90% of UK undergraduates to study physics, funded 782 PhD students  and 16,800 student training days.
• Between 2009 to 2012 public engagement programmes engaged people on 58 million occasions, with 2 million people engaged in face-to-face activities in 2013 alone.

In recent years, space debris has become a matter of considerable importance within the public perception of spaceflight activities. As media coverage, outreach activities and stakeholder interest gain more and more relevance, so does the question how space debris can be understood as a sociotechnical challenge that contemporary and future societies depend-ing on space-based services need to address. Similar to problems like climate change or marine pollution, space debris appears as a sustainability issue of global magnitude that requires us to think about outer space in terms of a sus-tainable societal future. Yet, space debris also diers from such seemingly comparable challenges in some regards, as, for example, it is only to be un-derstood within the context of recent space sector developments like the rise of New Space. Paying attention to security concerns as well as the specific ecological status of outer space environments, we outline possible avenues to painting a better picture of space debris’ role in contemporary public and policy debates. Bringing to the table a perspective influenced by Science and Technology Studies (STS), we thereby highlight space debris to be a bidirec-tional risk phenomenon. We conclude, that broader societal engagement in facing the challenge of space debris might be vital for handling it eÿciently and eectively and propose potential vectors for stakeholder participation.

The main objective of this dissertation is to outline the development of International Space Law in the field of space debris mitigation and remediation. The purpose is to provide a legal analysis starting from the Treaties and Principles of Law that make up the Corpus Iuris Spatialis, up to the proposal of a Code of Conduct for Space Debris Mitigation. The study is focused on the need of defining a technical and juridical set of rules at international level and is divided in three main parts. The aim of the first chapter is to evaluate the role of the already existing Treaties and to technically define what constitutes space debris because of a normative gap in the international regulatory system. Starting from the definition elaborated by Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination and from the role of the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s space objects catalogue, it will be examined the process of space debris accumulation, i.e. Kessler Syndrome. Indeed, security and sustainability play a primary role for the maintenance of Outer Space calling all the States to act diligently and responsibly in the interest of all international space community actors. The second chapter goes through the actual International legal regime for the mitigation and remediation of space debris, starting from the non-binding IADC and UNCOPUS Guide Lines, passing through the legally binding provisions set out in the International Space Law Treaties, arriving to the Space Situational Awareness system role.  In the third part, it will be presented the Case Law concerning Cosmos 954 aiming at providing a concrete example of dispute settlement and to understand how the International Space regulations work. A comparison between International Environmental Law’s provisions, such as the ones included in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration or in the 1992 Rio Declaration, and the provision of Space Law promoting Outer Space and Earth natural environment is also provided. Furthermore, the United Kingdom’s Outer Space Act, entered into force in 1986, shows how international provisions on space debris shall be implemented domestically. In the end, they will be presented the possible ways of enhancing the International Legal system on space debris mitigation through three main options based on the European Center for Space Law proposal: a voluntary regime of adherence, a United Nation Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space approach or a voluntary Code of Conduct on Space Debris mitigation. To date, the possibility of reaching an agreement on an International Code of Conduct, a voluntary scheme under the coordination of the United Nations, that can combine all three options listed above, seems to be a comprehensive solution and, according to the current dynamics of international norms of Space Law, even the most concrete.

Ubiquitous, limitless and ever-expanding as it may be, outer space has a history too. Although it is virtually impossible to experience outer space in a direct, unmediated manner, historians can study how it was represented, communicated and perceived. In addition to presenting the core questions that drive the Imagining Outer Space volume this chapter introduces the umbrella concept of ‘astroculture,’ discusses the necessity to ‘Europeanize’ space history and suggests to regard ‘science fiction’ and ‘science fact’ as complementary rather than contradictory. The article also draws attention to two further characteristics of twentieth-century astroculture, that is its futuristic, often explicitly utopian strand as well as a strong transcendental, if not outspokenly religious undercurrent.

In the beginning of 21st century, outer space plays an integral role not only in the scientific sphere but also grew in importance in the field of politics – including the sphere of foreign policy. For states that are in possession of space technologies and can be considered space powers, using space diplomacy in their foreign policy became an unique opportunity how to combine hard and soft power (as the character of space technologies makes it possible) and apply the strategy of so-called smart power.
This qualitative comparative case study supported by an interpretation methods of content analysis and discourse analysis allows us to compare the approaches of three specifically selected actors (and different-level space powers) that have different approaches towards application of smart power in their space diplomacy – Russia, European Union and India.
The findings indicate that the approach of a particular state is based on and influenced by several factors, including the legacy, level of clear set of institutional and legal foundations and material capabilities, but is also influenced by the foreign policy objectives and expectations of an individual country.

No tourist seeks a one-way ticket. A tourist returns home after a tour. Adventurers, by contrast are a different lot. They are far more reckless and seek a different kind of pleasure – not always in conformity with established norms, customs and general trends of human behaviour. This is particularly true of colonisers who take adventure to the other extreme. They seek to migrate, establish colonies and appropriate resources in virgin areas for their own benefit. The fear of the unknown and unexplored fires their imagination and unlike the average tourist who seeks a large amount of fun and a small measure of adventure, they seek the opposite and rush headlong into their ventures with little or no regard to the attendant dangers, risks and damage. Quite apparently, a one-way ticket to an unknown, unearthly and unchartered destination like Mars seeks to fulfil the urges of adventurers and colonisers rather than the average tourist seeking nothing more than a break from the mundane. Thus, it may safely be inferred that those volunteering for a one-way trip to Mars fall in the former category. The adventurer’s enterprise is at his own risk, the same cannot be said about the tourist. The safety and well-being of tourists on Earth is the responsibility of numerous agencies ranging from the tour operators to the states involved as also the public at large. The same cannot be said for adventurers and colonisers seeking new pastures on Mars. They fall in an entirely different category and the implications consequently are entirely different for the state, the trip operator, the colonisers and the public at large. The privileges and perks, the collective responsibilities of state and society as also rules and regulations that ensure the safety and well-being of tourists on earth cannot automatically be extended to adventurers and colonisers.
On the contrary, by custom and law, though the adventurer or coloniser acts on his own risk, he is obliged to ensure that his acts do not risk or endanger those not connected with the adventure. Similarly, agencies facilitating such adventures owe a duty of reasonable care to both the adventurer and the general public.  With regards to the nation-state, as per prevailing space legislation, the final responsibility as also liability on account of all space activity; national or international, governmental or non-governmental, commercial or personal rests with the concerned nation-state. Additionally, nations are bound by the usual state responsibility of ensuring the safety and security of their nationals, irrespective of whether they are directly or indirectly part of any space activity or not involved at all. Thus, the envelope of responsibilities on account of human space exploration is wide and devolves on the concerned state, the particular space agency as also the participants in the space activity. Various parties would be involved and there would be significant overlap and intertwining of responsibilities, all of which needs regulation well before the first proposed human space settlements come about. The area in this regard is entirely grey and to that extent the concept of a one-way ticket to Mars being touted by commercial companies as the next great milestone in tourism, exploration and colonisation is grossly premature. Neither has technology nor legislation matured to support such an endeavour. In its present state, the idea of colonising Mars is chaotic and fraught with danger to the individual, the state and the general public at large. There exists a need to be more deliberate, more realistic, more mindful and prepared before undertaking such risks since the risks impact all humanity on earth and not just a section of adventurers or colonisers. At the same time, the attendant risks should not be allowed to suppress aspirations of the general public. The better recourse would be to channelize the disparate energies of private players, commercial organisations and state agencies to fulfil humankind’s space aspirations. Towards that end, this paper seeks to examine the shortcomings and risks in the present endeavour and proposes recommendations to regulate and streamline the entire affair.

After the Apollo moon landings, disillusionment set in. With the return of the last astronaut in 1972, the skies – rather than the distant stars – once again became the limit. No longer considered the inevitable destination of infinite human expansion, outer space lost much of the popular appeal, cultural significance and political urgency that it had gained since the end of the Second World War. With the rapid waning of the worldwide Apollo frenzy, the optimism of the Space Age gave way to an era of planetized limits and space fatigue. Bringing together the history of European astroculture and American-Soviet spaceflight with recent scholarship on the 'long 1970s,' the thirteen chapters in this cutting-edge volume examine this period of transition and reconfiguration from a multiplicity of disciplinary perspectives. Rather than invoking oft-repeated narratives of a bipolar Cold War rivalry and an escalating Space Race, Limiting Outer Space breaks fascinating new ground by exploring a hitherto underrated and understudied decade, the Post-Apollo period.

It is a non-profit corporation which is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After completing several procedures and protocols the space agency has successfully registered with the NASA, NATO, SAMS, DUN & Bradstreet and the European Space Agency. With approval from different space agencies, it was a small step by the founder to make the space travel environment-friendly.

Freie Universität Berlin, 18–19 March 2016

Over the course of the twentieth century, outer space has developed into a predominant site of utopian thought and futuristic expansion scenarios. Arguing that space transformed into a place where competing visions of the future were projected, posited and played out by experts and the public alike, the final conference of the Emmy Noether Research Group “The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century” at Freie Universität Berlin will examine the rise and fall of the European Space Age from the interwar years through the Post-Apollo period.

Featuring presentations by group members and invited guests, the symposium pursues a double aim. As the project's closing event, it will take stock of individual and collective contributions to the concerted historicization of outer space undertaken since the group's establishment in 2010. It will evaluate to what extent 'astroculture' as a concept, research agenda and a new field of historical research has been successfully integrated into mainstream twentieth-century historiography. Addressing political, cultural, technological and transcendental aspects of space thought and spaceflight, the symposium also examines the existence and potential characteristics of a particularly West-European variant of the global Space Age. Focusing on the role outer space played in the making of the past century's polymorphic and protean futures, it will discuss the transformation of these past planetary futures into today's planetized present.

Conference speakers include Paul Ceruzzi (Washington, DC), Martin Collins (Washington, DC), Martina Heßler (Hamburg), Dirk van Laak (Gießen), Michael Neufeld (Washington, DC), Helmuth Trischler (Munich) and Helmut Zander (Fribourg).

This research was funded by, and implemented within, a UK national research organisation, while the author was the KE and Impact Evaluation Manager responsible for assessing impact on a £15m UK government-funded research programme.

This work was also submitted as the authors MBA dissertation which was accepted and awarded in 2009.

ABSTRACT: A methodology and methods ‘toolbox’ is proposed for conducting impact research and assessment from within research programmes. The emphasis is upon how to clarify and assess the wider impacts from the early stages onwards.

The approach explicitly acknowledges, and attempts to address, the known issues and challenges of impact assessment while drawing upon the resources and opportunities available to research managers and researchers within such programmes.

The study has two triangulating foundations. Firstly, it examines the academic literature to help identify and design the pilot methodology and methods. Secondly it trials these in a real programme to both test and improve them.

The study was conducted over one year within one leading UK research organisation, where two research programmes (and around 60 research projects of £15m total value) were being assessed for their impacts. The study draws upon actual impact management experience and reflection, prospective (ex ante) and retrospective (ex post) assessments, participatory contributions from leading researchers undergoing assessment, and consultation with external users. The findings of this study outline the pilot and its first iteration. Recommendations are made for improvement to the methodology and methods.

A subsequent follow-on bid to UK government incorporating the impacts identified from implementing this methodology, successfully led to a further £15m of government funding.

It is expected the pilot methodology and methods will be applicable to other organisations, conducting and funding such research programmes, required to research and assess the wider research impacts.

Although primary focus of implemetation trials was upon research in physical sciences, technology, high-tech engineering, computing/IT, and environment, the wider literature study, the methodology design and justification, the methods proposed and used, and the resulting general recommendations and lessons are expected to apply more broadly to many other research areas, where the impact is to be found more widely in the society, economy, government or public sector or within organizations, policies, professions or the public.

Interest in this work is expected from research programme managers, impact managers and assessors, management consultants advising in this area, and government funding managers, all seeking to embed a developing approach to understand, capture, and enhance wider impact.

The overall objective of the EO21 study is to: “Provide a unifying context and strategy to identify, analyse and capitalise on the key technological opportunities affecting the EO sector in the emerging data economy, from the collection of EO data to their exploitation in science and business.”
The emergence of cloud computing is already transforming the way we access and exploit data. Today, applications that were once performed by EO experts are now pushed to a cloud-based environment, such as the Google Earth Engine or Amazon S3, and are processed quickly and cheaply by a wide range of users (including non-space users). This has led to a paradigm shift in the method of distributing and processing big data, and in creating platforms that drive innovation and growth in user applications.

Acquiring a better understanding of the changing landscape of Earth Observation technologies and markets in the 21st Century, identifying the key drivers of change in the digital economy and EO sector (including technological, human, cultural and legal factors) is essential to providing context on which to build a strategy.

EO21: Indicator of Trends Report European Space Agency Satellite Applications Catapult. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274709142_EO21_Indicator_of_Trends_Report_European_Space_Agency_Satellite_Applications_Catapult [accessed Apr 14, 2015].

PUBLISHED HERE: https://www.academia.edu/42146132/_To_Think_European_The_ESA_Approach_to_Space_Cooperation_with_China_1976-1989_

ESA History Conference 2017 (Padua) - Speech paper. --.

In the same years in which a European Space Agency was being developed, the European Union
remarkably established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was
leaving behind itself the paralyzing experience of the Cultural Revolution and had stabilized
relations with the US four years before. The EU-China relations were partly the result of an
initiative of Christopher Soames as Vice-President of the Commission, even though it cannot be
ignored that most of the European countries had had unofficial contacts with Beijing in the
previous decades. Studying the overall situation, some analysts have argued that the
commercial purposes were prevailing on the European side, whereas communist China shared
instead the hope to find in Europe an alternative partner to the US. However, the field has not
been thoroughly studied yet and the case of the space cooperation precisely shows a pattern
that differs from the mentioned narrative...

Displacement maps from multitemporal InSAR (MTI) are usually noisy and fragmented. Thresholding on ensemble coherence is a common practice for identifying radar scatterers that are less affected by decorrelation noise. Thresholding on coherence might, however, cause loss of information over the areas undergoing more complex deformation scenarios. If the discrepancies in the areas of moderate coherence share similar behavior, it appears important to take into account their spatial correlation for correct inference. The information over low-coherent areas might then be used in a similar way the coherence is used in thematic mapping applications such as change detection. We propose an approach based on data mining and statistical procedures for mitigating the impact of outliers in MTI results. Our approach allows for minimization of outliers in final results while preserving spatial and statistical dependence among observations. Tests from monitoring slope failures and undermined areas performed in this work have shown that this is beneficial: 1) for better evaluation of low-coherent scatterers that are commonly discarded by the standard thresholding procedure, 2) for tackling outlying observations with extremes in any variable, 3) for improving spatial densities of standard persistent scatterers, 4) for the evaluation of areas undergoing more complex deformation scenarios, and 5) for the visualization purposes.

A credible CSDP requires the autonomous ability to gather and transmit information in order to support EU-decision making and actions, and as such the space domains of Earth observation, navigation and telecommunications are relevant to CSDP. But the developing European Space Programme currently focuses on the first two domains. The Satellite Communication (SATCOM) dimension had been identified by the Council in 2013 as a shortfall and as such, it is not been yet a part of the developing European Space Programme. Latest developments in this field initiated by the EC, ESA and EDA (some of them adopted by Council) seem to finally pave the way to embed SATCOMs into the future European Space Programme. The time has not come, but it is getting there.

This paper was presented before ESA astronaut Frank De Winne, for the course of Questions in Space Studies. In the paper, a European position is suggested in relation with China. The historical background, policy, and international relations of China as a spacefaring nation are thereby considered.

Based on an overview of the past, present, and potential future of a Sino-European partnership, Europe’s potential role, both of ESA and the EU in a broader international context is analysed.

China is continuously developing its space capabilities. The descent on the far side of the Moon was not only a historic achievement in space exploration, but also a strong signal and concrete expression of its rising capabilities to the rest of the world. Nevertheless, China desires to engage extensively in international cooperation. Although the nation still faces trust issues, one can speak of a window of opportunity to boost global cooperation with regard to human space exploration.

This article is a wrap-up of my master's thesis research on the transfer of space technology. Essentially, outer space is a challenging environment (weightlessness, vacuum, temperature extremes) demanding for systems that are failure-proof, reliable, and durable. Because the resulting technologies are in a class of their own they can offer valuable attributes to terrestrial industries as well. Therefore, technology transfer is especially effective in the space field. The transfer of space technology towards terrestrial applications provides important returns as it stimulates innovation and spurs economic growth. Innovation is thus not always the invention of a brand-new or revolutionary technology. In fact, the most efficient innovations stem from using existing technologies for purposes unrelated to their original use in order to create something new (technology as an enabler) or to improve something that already exists (technology as a differentiator). This process, referred to as technology transfer also brings valorisation as ideas and concepts are moved from the laboratory to the marketplace. The intention is to get the maximum value out of technology development in order to boost the economical and industrial competitiveness. Contrary to what some consider a waste of money, investments in space thus offer a lot of utility with a high potential of spillovers. The process of TT with regard to space consists of three segments. The first includes upstream transfers, spinning in ground based technology to support space programmes (e.g. launchers, satellites, exploration). The second segment is not a direct form of TT but is about using space-enabled data (e.g. Earth observation, telecommunication, Global Navigation Satellite Systems). The third segment contains downstream transfers. This is the process of turning space technology (hardware or software, products, processes) into an application down on Earth. It is this downstream segment that will be discussed further throughout this article.

Inaugurated in the spring of 2021, NYU Space Talks is a lecture series convened by Alexander C. T. Geppert at NYU's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies with the Department of History in New York City. Each semester, established and upcoming scholars will present the latest research on the history and politics of outer space, extraterrestrial life and astroculture, both in Europe and around the globe.

Everybody is welcome. Advance registration is required. For further details and to RSVP, please consult space-talks.com.

For much of the twentieth century, outer space and spaceflight have captured the human imagination and constituted the epitome of modernity. The volumes in this pioneering trilogy – Imagining Outer Space, Limiting Outer Space and Militarizing Outer Space – explore utopian imaginaries, futuristic technologies and extraterrestrial encounters from the turn of the century through the Post-Apollo period and the Cold War, both in Western Europe and beyond. Bringing together cutting-edge scholarship by leading experts, they establish astroculture as an exciting field of transdisciplinary research and break new ground in the historicization of the global Space Age.

Volumes I and II were published in spring 2018, volume III in winter 2021.


"All three volumes are highly recommended to those interested in how space exploration has affected culture and vice versa. I expect astroculture to grow in importance, both as a cultural phenomenon and as an area of study."
– Steven J. Dick, Former NASA Chief Historian and Library of Congress Baruch S. Blumberg Chair

"This ambitious publication program opens up new vistas in the cultural history of the Space Age, moving outward from accounts that prioritize the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union."
– De Witt Douglas Kilgore, Science Fiction Studies

"Without question, astrocultural investigation is one of the more interesting and original efforts to restructure spaceflight history in the early twentyfirst century."
– Roger D. Launius, Technology and Culture

Benjamin Pothier is a French Film Director and an Artist-researcher.
A PhD candidate in the international research program of the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK. He participated to the ARCTIC CIRCLE RESIDENCY (2013) in the Arctic Ocean, the ARS BIO ARCTICA (2014) Residency at Kilpisjarvi's research Station , Arctic Circle, during the polar Night. And directed a 360° film project on the world's highest active volcano up to 5837 m during a Mars Analog Astronauts training in Feb 2017. This talk was presented during the Earth without Humans II Symposium at Kapelica Gallery (Slovenia) in collaboration with the European Space Agency and Ars Electronica .

This project is running for Copernicus Masters www.copernicusmasters.com from ESA (European Space Agency). Earth is now open to the cosmos. We should consider it a fantastic opportunity for knowledge improvement. With ESA satellites like Galileo, we can now better understand some of the interactions of our planet with the cosmos. ESA shows us the things as they are, seen from far of our Earth academies. The project EPICENTRO aims to demonstrate how high-profile spatial technology can confirm a breaking, non-scholar and non-commercial, simply a human idea on Earth, on the modest Mediterranean island of Formentera. Deadline for the presentation is July, 17, 2021. Collaborations welcomed.

A study of the use of ERS-2 data was conducted over agricultural farmland sites in the Negev Desert. The ERS -2 data were acquired using the ISA (Israel Space Agency) receiving station operated by the Israel Aircraft Industry. Concurrent field measurements including the deployment of well-calibrated corner reflectors were also achieved. Results show that for individual fields where the soil roughness is kept at a constant the radar backscatter cross-section correlates well with the soil moisture component. However, without a priori knowledge of soil roughness the correlation is relatively poor. To solve for roughness and soil moisture, a technique is being developed using two ERS images. By this method 43% of the variance in the radar backscatter is explained by soil moisture. Further work involves the development of techniques to solve for both parameters.

Despite the rising tensions in the aftermaths of the Ukrainian events of 2014, the space relationships and programs are still on their way between Europeans and Russians.
This is the image on the surface and this work is to dive into the role and position of each actor that take part in these strategic relationships.
The European Space Agency, the European Union European member states and Russia are all different actors, have different interests and this impacts the way they interact with each-other. Our paper is to analyse all these differences.

Like other forms of debris in terrestrial and marine environments, space debris prompts questions about how we can live with the material remains of technological endeavors past and yet to come. Although techno-societies fundamentally rely on space infrastructures, they so far have failed to address the infrastructural challenge of debris. Only very recently has the awareness of space debris as a severe risk to both space and Earth infrastructures increased within the space community. One reason for this is the renewed momentum of interplanetary space exploration, including the colonization of the Moon and Mars, which is part of transhumanist and commercially driven dreams of the so-called New Space age. Understanding space infrastructures as inherently linked to earthly infrastructure, we attend to the ways in which space debris, a once accepted by-product of scientific-technological progress, economic interests, and geopolitics,

Planetary rovers enable good sample selection and retrieval for Mars sample return missions. After landing, the rovers search for the best possible scientific samples in the region around a lander, and they return these selected samples to an ascent vehicle that launches the samples into Mars orbit. To streamline the search for, the acquisition, and the retrieval of samples, rover autonomy is a critical technology. This paper summarizes a series of experimental results in the evaluation and demonstration of planetary rover autonomy, with a particular emphasis on rover system technology capabilities under development for a 2005 Mars sample return mission and its precursor missions.

Outer space is dark, expensive and dangerous. As a result, the development of a European Space Policy needs all the political support it can get, especially because it involves the transfer of national sovereignty at the EU level. The European Parliament has played an instrumental role in this respect. By analyzing all the space resolutions since 1979, I show that the EP has always promoted the cause of a European Space Policy, and that if has adjusted its argumentation over time to maintain the momentum.

Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite was designed and operated by the European Space Agency with the aim of mapping the Earth’s gravity field with high accuracy and spatial resolution.
This report is focused on the modeling, simulation and syntesis of the Drag-Free and Attitude Control System (DFACs), system to counteract the atmospheric drag to delete the non gravitational components from the gradiometer measurement.

Co-Authors:
Bassissi Enrico
Colombo Alessandro
De Luca Maria Alessandra

La gouvernance de Galileo, laboratoire de la politique spatiale européenne par Lou Villafranca Izquierdo 31 mars 2021 Résumé Qu'on le considère comme un Frankenstein au parcours chaotique ou comme le porte-drapeau de « l'autonomie stratégique » de l'Europe, le système de navigation par satellites Galileo est avant tout un grand programme industriel dont la gouvernance constitue un véritable laboratoire pour la construction de la politique spatiale européenne. Reflet des controverses qui émanent de la cohabitation entre logiques institutionnelles différentes, voire antagoniques, le pilotage de Galileo figure parmi les nombreux écueils que le programme rencontre depuis le début de son histoire. Cette note d'analyse vise à en identifier les principaux cadres.

Market creation is moving to the centre of mission-oriented innovation policy in the space sector. Agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are developing market creating innovation policies in response to (a) the increasing emphasis on societal grand challenges, (b) the rise of a new wave of space companies (often referred to as "New Space") and (c) the global trend towards interconnecting and interlinking of industries (a trend referred to as Industry 4.0). In this paper we explore the changing nature of mission-oriented innovation policies for market creation for two agencies, NASA and ESA. For these agencies, earlier mission-oriented policies focused on clear challenges with identifiable concrete problems and directed by a strong centralised agency. Contrast this with today, with broadly defined grand challenges, decentralised innovation systems with mixed top-down and bottom-up problem definition. In this paper, we describe the current drivers and pressures that are creating a window for policy change, we present examples of how NASA and ESA are responding to these pressures and use this exploration to dig deeper into the evolving frames of market creating innovation policy in the space sector to identify the challenges for such policies and to further articulate a research agenda.

The Rosetta Stone and the Obelisk of Philae tell us a unique and highly evocative story that is usually – as briefly as successfully – summarised under the idea of “translation”. Indeed, such a notion may well be explored on and articulated in different levels: the context where these monuments were originally placed and subsequently displaced from; the key role they had in the struggle towards the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian language as well as in the foundation of a new discipline; the symbolic status they have acquired since then, as iconic objects (especially the Rosetta Stone), carriers of wider cultural meaning that goes well beyond Egyptology.
Movement, meaning and metaphor, therefore, will be the main aspects the paper will focus on, addressing the two monuments as cultural products that not only must be framed within the proper historical milieu of the civilisation that produced and erected them, but could also be appreciated as meaningful for the modern society that has succeeded in recover, translate, and reshape them as “an emblem of our identity” (after Ray, The Rosetta Stone, p. 6).
In this perspective, the choice of the names “Rosetta” and “Philae” by the ESA’s comet mission, while reflecting the very hopes and achievements that the two monuments aroused and triggered in the understanding of the ancient Egyptian culture, has in turn provided them with a further step in their long history of movement and transformation.

This paper presents a rover execution architecture for controlling multiple, cooperating rovers. The overall goal of this architecture is to coordinate multiple rovers in performing complex tasks for planetary science. This architecture integrates a number of systems and research efforts on single rovers and extends them for multiple rover operations. Techniques from a number of different fields are utilized, including AI planning and scheduling, real-time systems and simulation, terrain modeling, and AI machine learning. In this paper, we discuss each architecture component, describe how components interact and present the geological scenario we are using to evaluate the overall architecture.

The launch of Sputnik in 1957 sent a remarkable wave of excitement and hope among the people for future space exploration and space missions. However, no one guessed that 50 years down the line when these satellites have completed their lifetime of work, they will lead to formation of ‘space debris’ – the primary threat for future of space missions especially in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Every year the amount of debris generated due to collisions, end of life (EOL) or malfunctioning is increasing at an exponential rate, which will finally lead to the ‘Kessler Syndrome’ – collision and formation of debris without the launch of new satellites. Therefore, there is a need to design a Space Debris Removal System for removing this hazardous debris for the safety of future flight missions. The proposed technology is a ‘Knowledge Payload’, which defines one of the techniques of space debris removal using a space web supported by a cluster of cubesats. The cluster of cubesats consists of a deployment system, which consists of collapsible rigid linkages used to deploy or compress the space web during debris removal. The primary objective of performing a microgravity experiment on the knowledge payload is to test the deployment system of the space web and to study the structural dynamics of the impact of a small mass of debris on the space web. A small mass of less than 10 cm is impacted on the space web with a velocity of 1 m/s for primarily understanding the impact dynamics of the web. The measurements that will be taken from the experiment are the strain values between the web and the rigid linkages during the deployment and after the impact of the small mass on the space web. This will give a measure of the strength and stiffness of the space web requirement to sustain during deployment and impact. The sensors designed in the cubesats will measure the dynamic response of the controls on each cubesat and the resulting maneuver required to stabilize the system. The proposed technology aims to develop a relatively low cost and controllable deployment system, which will be easy to manufacture and launch in a very compact manner. The measurements that will be obtained from the experiment will benefit NASA in determining new designs of space webs and solar sails for future space missions. It will also give an insight in the structure-control interaction occurring in the entire system during deployment and impact which will play a major role while stabilizing the system. This knowledge payload will definitely contribute in the development of space webs and deployment systems for future debris removal programs.

This document is the second in a series of guidance instructions given to participating college students in a futures studies exercise to move them into a scenario planning phase. The exercise was a requirement of my 100-level introductory course to futures studies and foresight, briefly described as follows. "EOSET-105" (Earth Observing Space Endurance Team Mission 105)  was a scenario planning exercise motivated by a fictional space mission.  Within the exercise, the crew of EOSET-105 expected to fly aboard a specially built Earth-orbiting space station for a full year as the first in a 20 year series of year-long EOSET missions. The EOSET-105 "crew members" (i.e., students) were told they had two primary objectives. First, to observe Earth's ecosystems and to recognize & report possible changes, anomalies, and new insights. Second, to conduct long duration spaceflight (LDSF) research on crew dynamics, and physical and mental health during its year on orbit.

Are the new technologies, especially the one related to satellite remote sensing, able to contribute significantly to understanding phenomena and crises affecting humanity, in order to support peace and security? A positive answer seems to be possible thanks to the big projects undertaken by the European Union (Galileo, GMES, NEREUS) that tend to spread the use of satellite data from Earth observation and new techniques of investigation of these data, for extracting more complex meanings by describing events that affect people throughout the world. Moreover, thanks to these analyses, these projects provide solutions to problems and crises that threaten its security. On the other hand, because of global navigation satellite systems, the use of geographic information provided to the user on mobile device is affecting his/her daily life. We are discovering new and imaginative ways to use geographical component of every feature and every phenomenon revealed on Earth surface. Therefore, we are considering remarkable the satellite data contribution to the local knowledge and the understanding of its transformations, providing new tools for urban development planning, for environmental preservation, for cities government. In case of features related to risk or mobility, some answers to needs of knowledge are available starting from the bottom, such as local administrations, for example. The new resources are satellites and sensors able to acquire data from remote and new processing techniques capable of crossing with other such data and return as a final product with full information of geographical component. Furthermore, the improvement of spatial, spectral and temporal resolution properties of these satellite data and the fast increase of geographic information systems allowed by these data (with the ability to automatically extract high-level semantic and context-dependent information, such as the most advanced image analysis systems), allow to obtain updated information as we never hoped before. Of course, in Europe a single country by itself cannot have forces, technical and financial assets that may afford similar challenges and place in orbit this huge amount of resources in order to observe the Earth. The European Union and ESA, financed by Member States, initiate large joint projects through agreements evolved over time, and in this way they support technological research and stimulate competition among enterprises of individual states.

Militarizing Outer Space is the final volume in the European Astroculture trilogy. This epilogue discusses the successful establishment of astroculture as a field of modern (European) historiography and suggests three new perspectives for further research on global astroculture and the making of our planetized present.

Like other forms of debris in terrestrial and marine environments, space debris prompts questions about how we can live with the material remains of technological endeavors past and yet to come. Although techno-societies fundamentally rely on space infrastructures, they so far have failed to address the infrastructural challenge of debris. Only very recently has the awareness of space debris as a severe risk to both space and Earth infrastructures increased within the space community. One reason for this is the renewed momentum of interplanetary space exploration, including the colonization of the Moon and Mars, which is part of transhumanist and commercially driven dreams of the so-called New Space age. Understanding space infrastructures as inherently linked to earthly infrastructure, we attend to the ways in which space debris, a once accepted by-product of scientific-technological progress, economic interests, and geopolitics, increasingly becomes a matter of concern. Drawing on...