SATELLITES: OBSERVE THE EARTH AND PROTECT THE ORBITAL ENVIRONMENT
Navigation, climate observation and communications depend on an increasingly crowded orbital infrastructure.
Satellites support services that the public uses every day: positioning, weather observation, communications and environmental monitoring. Practical utility coexists with risks of orbital congestion and fragments of space debris.
ESA has described how astronauts return from the International Space Station and how Europe studies its future in low orbit. Cooperation between agencies and commercial operators defines much of current space activity.
The sustainability question: how to reduce waste, share tracking information and retire end-of-life satellites. Standards and operating practices continue to evolve.
The diagrams on this page are conceptual. In the final edition, all mission photographs will have visible credit and license.