Topics covered:
- Awareness in space.
Space Situational Awareness Control Centre
What to study?
For prelims and mains: SSAM- need, significance and features of SSACC.
Context: The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has laid the foundation stone for the Space Situational Awareness Control Centre in Bengaluru.
Background:
ISRO has set up a Directorate of Space Situational Awareness and Management aiming at protecting high valued space assets from space debris close approaches and collisions. To carryout systematically all activities related to SSAM, a control centre is being established at Bengaluru.
Key functions:
- The control centre would host a range of activities related to the protection of Indian space assets from inactive satellites, pieces of orbiting objects, near earth asteroids and adverse space weather conditions.
- It would also assimilate the tracking data of inactive satellites from indigenous observation facilities and generates useful information from bare observations through analysis.
Significance:
Space Situational Awareness & Management (SSAM) has become an internationally significant area due to the rise of manmade space debris and the increased collision threat with operational spacecraft.
Sources: the Hindu.
