Sustainability beyond the confines of Earth: Space Situational Awareness

In 2018 Telespazio, within the Space Alliance, acquires a stake in Northstar Earth and Space:  the first step to branching out into a new business. The final episode in “A Space Story”.

27 July 2021

The Earth’s inner orbit is so polluted with space debris that it could hinder access to space for future generations. This was the scenario predicted for the year 2050 by Donald J. Kessler in 1978.

A few decades later, it became clear that the NASA astrophysicist was absolutely right.

In 2017 about 22,000 objects were tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network; only 4% of these are operative satellites, while the rest is space debris.

The consequences of this crowding are clear: satellites essential for our everyday lives are constantly endangered by shards flying crazily.

The solution is Space Situational Awareness: the ability to visualise, understand and map the physical position of natural and artificial objects orbiting the Earth.

With this goal in mind, on 16 September 2018 the Space Alliance formed by Telespazio and Thales Alenia Space purchased a share in NorthStarEarth and Space, an information services company which is developing the most advanced satellite system for monitoring the terrestrial and near space environment.

This unique constellation includes 40 satellites equipped with hyperspectral infrared sensors for geoinformation and optical sensors for monitoring space.  The first concrete step toward a new frontier in sustainability!

Other News & Stories

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The English edition of "Space In our Hands" presented by Telespazio and the Bocconi SEE Lab

The English edition of Space In our Hands, published by Mimesis International, was presented in Milan on 7 March. The book, already available in Italian in a version published by Hoepli, is the result of a project of Telespazio and of the SEE Lab (the Space Economy Evolution Lab of the SDA School of Management) and is dedicated to sustainability, an increasingly hot topic both on Earth and in space.

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Telespazio Germany and constellr have signed an agreement for the provision of Telespazio’s ground segment software solution, EASE-Rise, to operate constellr’s first satellite. The upcoming launch, scheduled for later this year, aims to provide global land surface temperature (LST) imagery, contributing to the fight against climate change.

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Telespazio is taking part in “Drones and advanced air mobility: flying into the future, between challenges and opportunities”

Next Wednesday, 28 February, Telespazio will be among the participants in the meeting “Drones and advanced air mobility: flying into the future, between challenges and opportunities”, organised by the Drones and Advanced Air Mobility Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, which Telespazio has been a partner of since 2021.

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The ASI AGILE satellite has re-entered the atmosphere, after being managed in orbit for 17 years by Telespazio

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