 Greetings. My name is Peter Martinez. I'm the Executive Director of Secure World Foundation, and it is my great pleasure to welcome you all to this virtual event organized jointly by Unidire and Secure World Foundation to discuss the role of space situational awareness in arms control in outer space. Space situational awareness, or SSA in short, can be broadly described as having an awareness of the space environment and objects, events and behaviors in outer space. The ability of SSA to shed light on behaviors is important because so many of the discussions around space security have focused on concerns around the proliferation of certain technologies and the perceived intent behind these developments because of their dual use or multi-use potential for counter space applications. But the perception of intent can be extremely subjective as perceptions of space capabilities and behaviors are strongly influenced by the political realities on the ground. And in the absence of information and transparency, the door is open for misperceptions or mistrust to fill in the gaps, which in turn leads to further miscalculations and further mistrust. This is why it's so important to find transparent ways to demonstrate and verify responsible and non-hostile behavior in orbit. In the broader strategic context, SSA can help to identify actions and behaviors that are potentially threatening or destabilizing. And it can help to identify and promote the observance of norms of responsible behavior to allow for a stable and predictable space domain, which in turn strengthens the overall security and stability of the space environment. When it comes to space arms control, the issue of verification has been a contentious topic for a long time. This is where SSA can make an important contribution to build trust, confidence and transparency, particularly as we are now seeing an enhancement and proliferation of public and private sector SSA capabilities around the world. Today's event will focus on the role of SSA in space arms control. This two-hour discussion will examine SSA's potential for verifying future space arms control agreements, drawing on experts from commercial, academic and intergovernmental organizations to discuss currents and emerging SSA capabilities as well as their limitations, and also to discuss the lessons learned from other domains with existing verification regimes. I would like to express my appreciation to my SWF and Unidire colleagues for putting together this very timely discussion and to all the panelists who will be speaking today. I wish you all a very fruitful exchange of views. Thank you.