On Tuesday, hundreds of companies in the US aerospace industry urged Congress to keep a small federal agency responsible for managing space satellite traffic. The agency was established by the first term of President Donald Trump but is now facing the threat of being dismantled.
In the White House’s proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year, the Office of Space Commerce under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is allocated only $10 million, an 84% decrease from the 2025 fiscal year budget. This cut would lead to the termination of the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), which aims to prevent satellite collisions and alert operators of potential impacts.
450 companies from seven different industry groups expressed in a joint letter to the Senate committee overseeing NOAA on Tuesday that without funding for TraCSS, “US commercial and government satellite operators will face greater risks, endangering key industries, increasing operating costs, and potentially forcing US industries to move overseas.”
With the rise of large satellite companies like SpaceX’s Starlink and the increasing military and commercial activities in Earth’s orbit, the risk of collisions between approximately 12,000 satellites in orbit and thousands of uncontrolled space debris has sharply increased. This has prompted efforts to establish a civil space traffic management system.
Audrey Schaffer, Vice President of Strategy and Policy at space tracking company Slingshot Aerospace, mentioned that budget cuts are equivalent to abandoning the opportunity for the US to shape a global space traffic management system, as Europe and China are developing their own satellite traffic systems.
She stated, “There must be consistency among different systems, otherwise we will face fragmented systems; if the US does not have a system to put forward, I really don’t see how the US can play a leading role in establishing an international space traffic management system.”
The Pentagon has long managed a space traffic database called Space-Track, but defense industry officials believe that this responsibility could detract from its national security mission and potentially blur a crucial security service with military interests while other countries seek to enhance global satellite coordination.
In 2020, the space industry praised the Trump administration’s directive for NOAA to take over the Pentagon’s space tracking functions and further integrate satellite position data from various countries and companies. The office has already released a trial version of TraCSS, which some companies are currently using, with plans for an official release early next year.
The Trump administration explained in budget documents released last month that the decision to terminate TraCSS was based on the system not being completed during the previous administration and the belief that private companies have the capability and business model to conduct space traffic coordination on their own.
Two major aerospace industry organizations, the Commercial Space Federation and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, protested the termination of TraCSS in another letter to Senators on Monday, stating that “providing basic space situational awareness services to end-users is a fundamental government function.”
(Reference: Reuters)