GMV European industry leader in space surveillance – Space Situational Awareness (SSA has been awarded a new contract by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) to develop software for advanced collision risk analysis and avoidance maneuver calculation for European satellite operators subscribed to the EU SST system’s collision avoidance service.

The new software, called CONAN (CONjunction ANalysis Software), will have a dual purpose: first, to increase the capabilities and improve the response times of the S3TOC (Spanish Space Surveillance and Tracking Operations Centre) and secondly, to provide European satellite operators subscribed to the EU SST system’s collision avoidance service with their own conjunction analysis capability, as it will also be deployed in their control centers.

CONAN will receive messages containing conjunction data for each operator’s satellites directly from the EU SST web portal for analysis. (The general purpose of this web portal is the provision of EU SST services.) It will also make it possible to analyze the collision risk calculation’s sensitivity to uncertainties in the orbits of the objects involved. Finally, it will provide the optimal avoidance maneuver for high-risk cases, also analyzing the effect of the maneuver on other possible subsequent conjunctions with the same or other objects. It will also feature a panel for monitoring statistics regarding the conjunction service.

In addition to the collision messages that the S3TOC and the French center (COO) publish on the EU SST web portal, CONAN will also be able to import messages issued by the equivalent American system (18-SDS, formerly known as JSpOC). This will allow operators to compare the information published by both sources in order to make the most appropriate decision in each case.