Paris, 4 June 2009 – During its sitting on Thursday the Assembly welcomed the efforts being made within the ESA framework to give the EU an autonomous space situational awareness system.

In his presentation of the report on “Space Situational Awareness” submitted on behalf of the Technological and Aerospace Committee, Edward O’Hara (United Kingdom, Socialist Group) said that Europe had made giant strides towards the goal of autonomy in space.

While systems such as the Galileo global positioning system and GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) were a clear demonstration of Europe’s resolve to become a key player in space, he noted that Europe’s impressive array of assets had an Achilles heel, which was the lack of a space situational awareness system to protect them from being damaged by space debris or hostile action.

The implications of that deficiency were, he said, masked by the fact that the United States shared the benefits of its SSA system with its European allies. Given the importance of space security for security in general, the SSA preparatory programme launched by the ESA Council was to be welcomed.

In its recommendation the Assembly stressed that “should Europe finally decide to establish such an SSA capability, it should do so in dialogue and cooperation with its allies and partners, in particular the United States”. It further recommended that existing national and ESA capabilities be made available to such an SSA programme.