Space Safety Expert Centre: Services for the SSA/STM ecosystem

The Space Safety Expert Centre, developed within the framework of ESA's Space Safety Programme (S2P) and hosted by the Astronomical Institute at the University of Bern (AIUB), provides an extensive array of services to address the increasingly complex challenges of space debris. By fostering a robust network of diverse stakeholders and data providers, the Expert Centre is strategically positioned to offer a comprehensive suite of services for the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) domain.
Attitude catalogue service of the Expert Centre plays a pivotal role for the attitude motion characterization of the Resident Space Objects (RSO) based on the ground based observations. This characterization is crucial for the applications such as active debris removal and in-orbit servicing missions. We illustrate this service by presenting results from coordinated observation campaigns involving multiple sensors over the span of a year. These campaigns aimed to acquire more than 400 light curves of at least one hundred RSOs of varying shapes and orbital regimes. Following an overview of the infrastructure used to acquire and analyze these light curves, we discuss a selection of notable cases.
Moreover, we summarize two other related services of the Expert Centre –Validation and Qualification (V&Q) of ground based optical sensors that contribute data towards SSA/STM applications and support in standardization of data formats. Recently, the V&Q service has been successfully offered to 21 sensors across the world. We highlight the benefits of this service for the sensor operators and their customers. On the other hand, Expert Centre has undertaken reviews of existing international data format standards and provided recommendations, improvised versions of these standards to aid further analyses based on the raw observation data.
As the Expert Centre transitions to a new legal structure, we also outline our roadmap for upcoming developments and present avenues for collaboration, inviting the community to join us in advancing space safety initiatives and becoming a part of the solution for safe and sustainable operations in the space.