Space debris activities in Europe BT - 4th European Conference on Space Debris, April 18, 2005 - April 20, 2005

Space debris activities within Europe are predominantly performed by ESA, and by the national space agencies ASI (Italy), BSNC (UK), CNES (France), and DLR (Germany), with the support of European industry, research institutes, and academia. Since the year 2000 such activities are coordinated by a Space Debris Working Group, within a European Network of Centres, with representatives of the aforementioned agencies. The scope of debris activities covers research in the areas of ground-based and in-situ measurements, the development of debris and meteoroid environment models which are consistent with measurement data, the assessment of debris related risks on orbit and during re-entry, the development of effective shielding technologies, the improvement of techniques for hyper-velocity impact tests and computer simulations, the analysis of long-term effects of different debris mitigation measures, the implementation of such concepts in launcher and satellite designs, and the concerted work towards international agreements to arrive at common debris mitigation standards. The European partners ESA, ASI, BNSC, CNES, and DLR support the development of such international standards at the level of the UNCOPUOS Scientific and Technical Sub-Committee, and within the ISO Orbital Debris Coordination Working Group (TC20/SC14). These standardization efforts are supported by a European Code of Conduct on Space Debris Mitigation, and by the combined technical expertise provided by the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC).