SWF Holds Panel Discussion on the Changing Nature of Space Situational Awareness

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Space situational awareness (SSA) - commonly defined as knowledge about the space environment and activities in space - is an important part of space sustainability, safety, and security. SSA has historically been mostly a military mission that focused on tracking the locations of objects in space and detecting space-based threats. However, the nature of SSA is evolving as the number of actors in space increases, including an increasing proportion of non-governmental players and space activities, and the nature of the threats to active satellites diversifies and expands to include natural and human-generated threats, as well as intentional and unintentional threats. 

On Tuesday, December 9, 2014, SWF held a panel discussion in Washington DC entitled "Seeing Into Space: Perspectives and Initiatives for Enhancing Space Situational Awareness." The event featured six speakers from the U.S. government and private sector entities, who provided a range of national security, civil, and commercial perspectives on SSA. 

A detailed agenda and speaker bios can be found on the event page. 

An audio recording of the event can be found here (2hr mp3 file).