Delivering the Next Generation Safety of Flight System: Q&A with Joe Chan and Felipe Jimenez Gonzalez

(L-R) Felipe Jiménez González, Head of Flight Dynamics at GMV and Joe Chan, Chairman, SDA

In September 2025, the Space Data Association (SDA) announced that it had selected GMV to deliver its next generation safety of flight system. The Space Safety Portal (SSP) will be agile and enable new capabilities that will support today’s mission critical space operations in an evolving multi-orbit environment.

Satcom.Digital sat down with Joe Chan (JC), Chairman of the SDA and Felipe Jimenez Gonzalez (FJG), Head of Division, Commercial Flight Dynamics at GMV to find out more about the new system and how it will empower SDA with enhanced services and capabilities.

Why was a next generation safety of flight system needed?

JC: When the SDA was first established, about 15 years ago, the landscape was very different and there was very limited awareness in terms of SSA (space situational awareness). SDA was pioneering in its work, bringing operators together to share data because this is something that they were initially very reluctant to do. However, today that has changed dramatically, and companies are much happier to share data. Similarly, 15 years ago, there were hardly any close approach conjunctions but now, with so many commercial and government entities looking at SSA, we have multiple conjunctions for the same event, so we have a new problem that we need to resolve.

The new Space Safety Portal is not just an update of the legacy system but a redesign leveraging our past 15 years of operation experience and emergent technologies, enabling us to implement new ideas because today, we can do so much more. It will enable us to stay current and a step ahead of the technology.

FJG: I also think it’s important that the SDA has access to ad hoc data when required. This is something that we will also be offering, providing optional tailored data services on top of the SSP baseline, for members who require enhanced analytical or operational support.

The other important feature is the scalability of the system. There are already a large number of operators and number of satellites, but it's growing. Larger operators will join the SDA in the future, some of them with huge satellite constellations, so it’s vital that the system is scalable in terms of being able to accommodate big satellite constellations like OneWeb or Amazon Kuiper.

Some years ago, we were only able to gather information from a single source - the US government and their assets for telescope data and this information was publicly available, but now there are more service providers. SpaceX is also sharing some of their computations and the idea is that, through the SDA we can build something that could be a hub of information of different sources.

Another important fact is that the SDA is not linked to any political entity or any specific country. It's an international association. That agnostic position is also something that is important for future of the SDA.

JC: That’s very good point. I think our philosophy previously was to bring operators together but right now, we're actually preparing a system that can match systems to systems and that allows communication among them. Instead of having multiple CDMs, we will have multiple sources of data and fuse them to get the best CDM available rather than having operator to decide which CDM is the right CDM.

I think Felipe's point about us being independent is important as we are a trusted third party that guarantees data privacy and protection from misuse. I think that's very attractive. That position hasn't changed, but now we want to be able to enhance what we offer. GMV is providing us with better security and cyber protection and those are important factors. We need the system to stay ahead of all the different technologies.

Why was GMV selected?

JC: Well, we started with an RFP. And we received quite different, very capable, very strong proposals but amongst all of them GMV stood out. GMV has very extensive experience. Not only are they involved in SSA, but they're involved in satellite operations. They're familiar with satellite operator perspective. This made them stand out. It's a natural partnership.

FJG: Thank you for these nice words, Joe. I would say that, besides the dedicated group that will be supporting the SDA, we have around 150 people within GMV that are dedicated to SSA which is a huge number, and this means there is a lot of support, and our colleagues have excellent visibility of all the ongoing activities in different countries. I'm responsible for the Flight Dynamics Division, so I and my colleagues know what it’s like first-hand when we receive an alert. We are always asking how we can mitigate the risk of collision in flight dynamics and operations. These things are very tightly linked.

And then maybe finally, I think the biggest strength of GMV is that we are very, very close to our customers and to our partners and I think this is something really valuable. We offer a baseline service that everyone is entitled to during working hours, but we can also offer extended support that is 24/7 if any member feels that they might require that. This could be useful for some smaller operators that maybe cannot provide the round the clock support that is sometimes needed.

What capabilities will the next generation system comprise and what will it enable the SDA members to do?

FJG: We can provide information on the probability of collision and something that we call synthetic covariance, which is a measure of the uncertainty of the orbits. I would also highlight the fact that the SSP will be able to digest different sources of information rather than just one.

Scalability is a very important feature as well. As new members join the SDA, the amount of information we must deal with is also growing so the system has to be adaptable in terms of scale and yet keep within the pricing policies of the SDA.

JC: GMV has been very good in terms of standing up an agile system and, when changes need to be made, they can be adopted rapidly. The future and strength of the new SSP is having access to the best and most authoritative data to perform close approach monitoring (CA) and space traffic management (STM).  Having a system that can process and adapt to different kinds of data sources is critical. I think that is really the key. When you think about it, conjunction monitoring is not difficult, if you have accurate and reliable data.  The SSP will take in multiple data sources and fuse that data - that’s one of the really big changes to highlight.  The new SSP serves as platform that encourages and allows for secure data sharing among operators and systems to build the best data needs for CA and STM.  Another important function of the new SSP is that it serves as a hub for communication among operators with a comprehensive list of points of contact. The two key ingredients for successful CA and STM.

FJG: Another interesting aspect of the system is the fact that we’ve had to change of mindset regarding the bias towards GEO. At GMV, most of our customers were operating in GEO but today there is a shift as we are seeing increasing numbers of new satellites, new constellations and this means that the way in which we display information in the portal should be different too.

We will be discussing this with SDA members to gather their feedback on how they want to see the information displayed that is adapted to the new orbital situation. We realise how important it is to listen to our customers’ needs and we try to adapt our services to this to this feedback.

JC: That’s a really good point. We started with mostly GEO operators and today we are slowly growing into LEO and MEO and with GMV we can grow and adapt to the new orbital regime with varying needs.

How will your experience with systems for EU SST and TraCCS assist with the delivery of this next generation space safety portal?

FJG: I think the experience is very much applicable because this was a quite similar service in which we were involved with for EU SST. We have that heritage that applies to the services that we will be doing for SDA.  Besides that, we also have a similar service to the one we will be providing to the SDA, which is called Focusoc that has been running for seven years. These are services that are really very, very similar to what we will be providing. And yes, and the experience with working with TraCCS is also really relevant.

We can take our experience and then of course extrapolate it and use it within the SDA.

Has there been a change in in attitude from the industry towards SSA over the last, say, five years? Has there been an awakening in terms of the attitude towards SSA?

JC: I would say yes, definitely. There's a hunger for this information and if we don’t nurture the information we have and put everything together in one place, we're going to have many fragmented systems, and I think that's what we want to avoid.

FJG: Exactly. Yeah, I totally agree. The operators have evolved, and I think that everyone is aware of the need to have good policy to minimize the potential collision risk. These concepts are being integrated into their operations and governments are investing more money because they have more knowledge about the importance of this.

The problem the operators are facing is that now perhaps there is too much information, and they don't know what to do with it. They are getting alerts from many sources of information, and they say and now what? What should I do? Sometimes you are receiving information that could be misleading. So having good policies and of course having association like the SDA that can help in this decision making is really, important because the difficult point now is not having information. But that information needs to be available in a controlled manner so that you can define a policy which is clear, and you can make timely, sometimes rapid decisions with it.

JC: 15 years ago, it was a nightmare. If a collision was coming up, I didn't know about it. Now the nightmare is that there is a collision coming up, but I have ten different bits of information, and they are all slightly different. What do I do now?

You don't want to have multiple rules, you want to have consistent rules and we also need to talk to one another. I hope that SDA will become a hub where we can place all the information. We're not commercial. We're not in competition. We want to be a partner. Our only interest is to strengthen the business and if some operators don’t feel comfortable sharing data, SDA could be used to provide protection and privacy.

And if we don't do something now, the systems will become more confused, more fragmented. Once fragmented, it's hard to manage. People want information. But how do we organize it? How do we put information into something very useful?

We're there to help operator to make sense of all this information. I think that is one of the key functions of SDA.