From 11th to 13th March, the Steering Committee (STC) and Coordination Committee (COOC) of the European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) Partnership convened for their regular meeting at the Academic Centre of the University of Latvia in Riga.
The EU SST is an integral part of the European Union’s Space Programme, specifically the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) component, which was formally adopted in 2021 under Regulation (EU) 2021/696 by the European Parliament and Council. The initiative aims to enhance the security of EU space infrastructure, monitor space activities, and maintain a catalogue of space objects, utilising a network of sensors available across member states, including radars, telescopes, laser ranging systems, and space-based systems.
The EU SST Partnership plays a key role in supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and currently provides critical services to over 200 satellite operators worldwide.
During the meeting, recent developments within the partnership were discussed, including the February 2025 incident in Poland, where debris from a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket fell near Poznań. Additionally, the meeting saw the participation of three new EU SST candidate countries—Belgium, Luxembourg, and Slovakia—bringing the total number of participating states to fifteen, including Latvia.
Latvia continues to contribute to the EU SST Partnership through its “LV_RIGA-SLR” laser ranging system, which is operated and maintained by the University of Latvia. At this stage, the system’s application in SST service provision is still in the research phase.
The EU SST Partnership remains a pivotal component of Europe’s efforts to ensure the safety and sustainability of space activities, fostering international cooperation in space situational awareness.
The meeting was conducted within the framework of the ERAF project No. 1.1.1.1/1/24/I/001 “More Efficient Implementation and Management of Latvia‘s Science Policy”.
About EU SST
As space becomes more crowded, with over 1 million pieces of man-made space debris currently orbiting Earth, the risk of collisions, fragmentations, and re-entries into the atmosphere is growing. The EU SST sub-component of the EU Space Programme helps mitigate risks, particularly for key space assets like Galileo, EGNOS, Copernicus, and GOVSATCOM satellites. EU SST tracks and surveys registered satellites, providing essential data and services to protect space assets and ensure the continuity of critical space-based applications. In the first half of 2024, EU SST reported 68 re-entry events involving at least one EU Member State. While these objects may not have reached the ground, EU SST’s data helps anticipate and manage potential risks.
