Richard DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said OSC has made efforts to develop and implement the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, a civil space situational awareness and space traffic coordination — dubbed SSA and STC, respectively — platform.
DalBello told Senate lawmakers during a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that TraCSS will serve as a modern information technology system designed to provide satellite tracking data and related services to support civil and commercial space satellite operators and owners.
At the hearing, he said his office is taking a phased development approach for TraCSS to develop capabilities and facilitate the transition of STC and SSA responsibilities from the Department of Defense to the Department of Commerce.
“TraCSS will ingest unclassified data from DOD and integrate commercial SSA data and services. Over time and with each phase, more commercial data and commercial SSA services will be integrated as core capabilities,” DalBello stated.
“This public-private collaboration will continue to evolve through ongoing research, integration, and testing to advance capabilities for civil SSA and STC. These combined efforts are improving SSA data interoperability and increasing SSA data sharing, and coordination across the U.S. Government is ensuring that there is no disruption in basic SSA safety services,” he added.
The OSC director said the Biden administration’s legislative proposal would provide DOC with authorities to implement the public-private approach of the TraCSS program.
In October, NOAA started soliciting information from potential industry sources that could provide a user interface for TraCSS.
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