Finnish Space Situational Awareness Center
Disruption-free functioning of society and securing its well-being depend to an increasing extent on space activities and satellite-based services. These include communications, time and location data, monitoring systems for weather and environmental conditions, and satellite services supporting the work of the Defence Forces and other authorities.
The importance of space activities in safety, security and defence policies increases and the amount of commercial space activities grows. Finland is responsible for its national space activities.
Situational awareness is a prerequisite for identifying, recognising and predicting threats posed by space and space activities. A national space situational awareness centre would allow the authorities, including the Defence Forces, as well as operators critical to the functioning of society to receive an up-to-date situation picture as well as early warnings of threats posed to Earth by space and space activities.
It was the view of the steering group that bringing the provision of the space situation picture and the related expertise and technical capability into one virtual centre of several national operators would be the most effective model in terms of cost-efficiency and organisation. The group recommended that the national provision of space situation picture be concentrated into Finnish space situational awareness centre that could start operating by 2026.
