{"id":48868,"date":"2025-07-08T19:16:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/top-space-industry-organizations-petition-congress-over-planned-cuts-to-space-traffic-management-system\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T19:16:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:16:00","slug":"top-space-industry-organizations-petition-congress-over-planned-cuts-to-space-traffic-management-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/top-space-industry-organizations-petition-congress-over-planned-cuts-to-space-traffic-management-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Space Industry Organizations Petition Congress Over Planned Cuts to Space Traffic Management System"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Top space industry organizations are urging Congress to fund the Office of Space Commerce <\/b>(OSC) and its space traffic coordination system after NOAA<\/strong>\u2019s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 details steep cuts to its funding. <\/p>\n

A group of space industry organizations representing more than 450 space, satellite, and defense companies sent a letter to House and Senate leaders on Tuesday arguing that these cuts would put commercial and government satellite operators at risk. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout funding for space traffic coordination, U.S. commercial and government satellite operators would face greater risks \u2013 putting critical missions in harm\u2019s way, raising the cost of doing business, and potentially driving U.S. industry to relocate overseas,\u201d the letter says. <\/p>\n

The Aerospace Industries Association<\/b> (AIA), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics <\/b>(AIAA), Commercial Space Federation<\/b>, Commercial SSA Coalition<\/b>, National Security Space Association<\/b>, the Satellite Industry Association<\/b>, and Space Data Association<\/b> all signed the letter. <\/p>\n

OSC is under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is the principal unit for space commerce policy activities within the Department of Commerce. NOAA\u2019s budget request released last week would cut OSC\u2019s budget by 85% and 18 positions and eliminate federal funding for the Traffic Coordination System for Space, known as TraCSS.<\/p>\n

The cuts would undo the work that the previous Trump Administration began in 2018 with Space Policy Directive-3, which directed the Department of Commerce (DOC) to provide basic space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic coordination services to commercial and civil space operators, instead of the Department of Defense.<\/p>\n

OSC has been developing TraCSS for years in collaboration with industry. The system currently produces conjunction data messages for a set of beta users.<\/p>\n

According to the budget justification, the Administration believes the support to private industry SSA services has met the intention of of SPD-3, and private industry has the \u201ccapability and the business model to provide civil operators with SSA data and STM [space traffic management] services.\u201d <\/p>\n

Space industry organizations argue in the letter that space traffic coordination is best managed by a civilian agency, which also preserves military resources for defense missions. \u201cKeeping space traffic coordination within the Department of Commerce preserves military resources for core defense missions and prevents the conflation of space safety with military control \u2013 critical to U.S. leadership in setting international standards and norms for space activities,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis funding change would effectively undo over a decade of policy consensus on this topic,\u201d Audrey Schaffer, vice president of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace, told Via Satellite<\/i>. <\/p>\n

Slingshot Aerospace is one of the commercial providers involved with TraCSS. Schaffer also represents the Commercial SSA Coalition, a group of commercial space situational awareness (SSA) providers that includes Slingshot Aerospace, ExoAnalytic Solutions, COMSPOC, and Kayhan Space.<\/p>\n

Schaffer says that a U.S. government system that leverages private innovation, like TraCSS, is the best outcome for space traffic coordination and U.S. leadership in space. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. government needs to be able to go toe-to-toe internationally with other countries who are also creating space traffic coordination or space traffic management systems, to be able to negotiate the rules and formats and standards for global space traffic management,\u201d she said. \u201cWhile industry certainly has the technical expertise to support those discussions, there are governments that are not necessarily interested in negotiating with a private company on those standards. That\u2019s really a role for the U.S. government.\u201d <\/p>\n

She says U.S. leadership is important in shaping the future of space traffic management \u2014 much like the fact that the official language of air traffic control is English because the U.S. had such a strong role in shaping the international system for air traffic control. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t have a U.S. system to bring to these negotiations to shape those rules and standards, we will lose our opportunity for leadership in the air traffic control of the future, essentially,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n

Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association, echoed those concerns about the U.S. losing ground in international leadership in space traffic management if TraCSS is canceled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an international issue, and this is a great opportunity for U.S. leadership because we are far and away the leader in space,\u201d Stroup told Via Satellite<\/em>. \u201cMy fear is that if the U.S. isn\u2019t going to take on this role, that it could be China or Europe \u2014 I don\u2019t think in any of those circumstances we want to rely on data from other countries to determine the safety of U.S. assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Satellite services like defense applications, weather monitoring, broadband, and mobile communications, and direct-to-device services could all be put at risk in a satellite collision or if an orbit becomes unusable from a lack of space traffic management, Stroup said. He was surprised to see the proposed TraCSS funding cuts because it was an issue the previous Trump Administration prioritized, and one that has broad consensus in the commercial space industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an issue behind which space industry is absolutely united,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the commercial satellite industry \u2014 but all operators in space. This had been a carefully thought through process over a number of years. I think we\u2019re all questioning what\u2019s next if the TraCSS program is canceled.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Top space industry organizations are urging Congress to fund the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) and its space traffic coordination system after NOAA\u2019s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 details steep cuts to its funding.  A group of space industry organizations representing more than 450 space, satellite, and defense companies sent a letter to House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}