The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Commerce has released a document articulating its vision of a global system that facilitates coordination between various providers of space situational awareness services.
The OSC said Monday that its envisioned system would be composed of national or regional hubs, which, in turn, would be supported by international partnerships and augmented by a commercial SSA industry.
According to the OSC, the coordination system would work to minimize conflicting information about “potential conjunction events” that might affect spacecraft. The system would also serve as a foundation for possible space traffic coordination efforts, which would require consistent SSA information.
The office went on to note that the contribution of the U.S. to this system is the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, which may serve as a national or regional SSA provider in the future.
To facilitate global coordination, the OSC said TraCSS must be developed openly, transparently and in close coordination with other countries, including those that are developing their own SSA capabilities and those that have traditionally not collaborated with the U.S.