ESPACE is an acronym of European Satellite PArtnership for Computing Ephemerides.
It is a consortium of experts financed by the European Union of which some are part of the Royal Observatory of Brussels team. The objectives of this group of scientists are numerous. The main goal is to create more precise ephemerides for the natural satellites, space probes and shuttles using the astrometic data collected from space and on the Earths surface.
These will allow for models of the dynamics of these satellites to be drawn up and well as better representations of their rotations.
The methods of determining the orbits of probes will also be improved.
The project is split into 11 work groups:
- the coordination
- radio science
- laser drilling
- VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry)
- treatment of digitalized data
- astromety
- defining reference points and improving the knowledge on the coordinates of planets
- determining the ephemerides of space objects and satellites
- establishing a database
- giving access to the data
- didactic activities
Finally, particular attention will be given to the coordination of the work groups to produce the adequate, quality material to the scientific and professional communities.
A website in English was created, entirely dedicated to this project. You can find it by following the link
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