Written by: Matilde Sacchi

Edited by: Zoi Sofologi

Supervised by: Syuzanna Kirakosyan

Since the EU introduced the 2021-2027 Space Programme, it has assumed an entrepreneurial role in coining new concepts and terms to frame its increasingly versatile space activities. As the EU’s action in space gradually developed to increase new projects, so did the terminology employed in the EU’s official document addressing space affairs. In particular, the EU conceptual framework for space expanded to include comprehensive notions such as Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) that add to the more pragmatic ones of Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) and Space Traffic Management (STM). This paper analyses how diverse notions have come to be in some of the EU’s space-related programmatic documents and how they relate to one another. Such an analysis is key to understanding the current trends of the EU’s action in space, trends which in turn imply restructuring the space policy governance.