Space Safety

The Space Safety Programme (S2P) develops in the first place R&D activities and pre-operational services aiming at warning and protecting users against a number of threats that originate from the space environment. We distinguish between three types of threats:

• Space Weather (SWE): threat of an impact of radiation and high energetic particles coming from the Sun on technological systems and on humans;
• Near-Earth Objects (NEO): threat of a collision of asteroids with the Earth;
• Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST): threat of collisions of satellites with other satellites and with space debris.

Potential users of these services are satellite and launcher operators, astronauts, the ISS, telecommunication and navigation actors, airplane companies, electricity companies, geological services, insurance companies, the tourist sector, civil protection authorities, etc. The purpose of the services is to provide accurate and timely information about the threat to the users which allows them to assess the risk and take measures to reduce the impact.

Building upon more than 20 years of investments in the field of solar physics, Belgium has taken the lead in Europe in Space Weather research, application development and services. The ESA Space Weather Services Coordination Centre, the Expert Service Centre for Solar Weather and the Expert Service Centre for Space Radiation are situated in the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence at the Space Pole in Brussels. The Space Weather Data Centre has been developed by Belgian industry and is hosted in ESEC in Redu.

In addition, our country has a unique expertise in the field of modelling of the trajectory of solar ejecta from the Sun towards us and of their interaction with the Earth's atmosphere; these models are essential tools for the prediction of space weather phenomena on Earth and are being developed within the Virtual Space Weather Modelling Centre (VSWMC).

A second part of the S2P Programme concerns the development of an observational capacity regarding the three abovementioned risks:

• SWE: The LAGRANGE mission is being developed which will monitor the trajectory of the solar ejecta from the Sun towards the Earth. Our country is responsible for the ultraviolet camera on-board. The S2P Programme further develops instrumentation for the observation of space weather phenomena that will be piggy-back launched on planned satellites. The Programme also finances the operations of the made in Belgium PROBA-2 satellite which observes the atmosphere of the Sun already since 2009.        
• NEO: The HERA mission is being developed which will observe and characterise the Dimorphos asteroid. This is a demonstration mission in preparation of future systems that must ultimately allow us to change the orbit of asteroids that can collide with the Earth. Belgium has a strong industrial and scientific participation in this mission.  
• SST: The Programme contains technological developments that are necessary for the development of radar systems to monitor the orbits of satellites and space debris. In addition, the first ADRIOS (Active Debris Removal/ In-Orbit Servicing) mission, named ClearSpace-1, is developed in partnership with industry; this satellite will deorbit a large piece of debris to let it burn up in the atmosphere. An automatic collision avoidance system is also developed, named CREAM (Collision Risk Estimation and Automated Mitigation).    

The S2P Programme is the successor of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme in ESA (2009-2019). Complementary activities will take place from 2021 onwards within the SSA element of the 'Space Programme of the European Union'.