The American company Slingshot Aerospace signed an agreement with the British Space Agency for the supply of optical sensors, making its first international sale of equipment for space monitoring systems. This is happening against the background of growing demand from the states, which seek to develop their own capabilities in the field of tracking objects in orbit and reduce dependence on the United States.
The company announced the deployment contract 13 sensors in five locations around the world, which is implemented jointly with the German manufacturer of astronomical equipment Baader Planetarium. These sensors will work independently of Slingshot's internal network, which already has 204 surveillance systems, however, the UK side will be able to use the company's AI-based analytics software.
Slingshot highlights, that the demand for own space monitoring systems is growing rapidly. Countries are not only looking to buy data from third-party providers, but also to create full-fledged national infrastructures of "sovereign surveillance" — from software to hardware systems. The issues of cyber security and maintaining data chains are becoming more and more relevant.
In Great Britain, the acquired systems will complement the national capabilities, which are being developed within the National Space Operations Center (NSpOC). This will allow the country to quickly and cheaply scale up monitoring of the growing stream of satellites in orbit.
According to Slingshot, the number of active satellites in space may grow from 12 000 to 100 000 to 2030 year, which makes constant and independent monitoring critical.
To support international activities, Last year, Slingshot opened an office in Great Britain at the Space Systems Operations Facility at the Cornwall Spaceport..
Source: https://spacenews.com