The Trump administration’s plan to gut the Office of Space Commerce and cancel the government’s first civilian-run space traffic control program is gaining plenty of detractors.
Earlier this week, seven space industry trade groups representing more than 450 companies sent letters to House and Senate leaders urging them to counter the White House’s proposal. A spokesperson for the military’s Space Operations Command, which currently has overall responsibility for space traffic management, said it will “continue to advocate” for a civilian organization to take over the Space Force’s role as orbital traffic cop.
Giveth and taketh away
The White House’s budget request submitted to Congress for fiscal year 2026 would slash the Office of Space Commerce’s budget from $65 million to $10 million and eliminate funding for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS). The TraCSS program was established in the Department of Commerce after Trump signed a policy directive in his first term as president to reform how the government supervises the movements of satellites and space debris in orbit.
The Office of Space Commerce, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has been around since the 1980s as a licensing agency for remote sensing and Earth observation satellites.
TraCSS is designed as a cloud-based system to serve as a nerve center for collecting satellite tracking data from spacecraft owners and a network of government and commercial telescopes and radars. The space traffic control network then uses the information to provide alerts of potential in-space collisions to satellite operators. This is becoming more important as thousands more satellites head to space each year.
Industry trade groups are lobbying Congress to reverse the Trump administration’s proposal and restore the Office of Space Commerce’s (OSC’s) budget to this year’s level of $65 million.
“One of OSC’s most important functions is to provide space traffic coordination support to US satellite operators, similar to the Federal Aviation Administration’s role in air traffic control for the US airline industry,” seven trade groups wrote in joint letters to Congress.
The trade organizations count the largest Western commercial satellite operators among their members: SpaceX, Amazon, Eutelsat OneWeb, Planet Labs, Iridium, SES, Intelsat, and Spire. These are the companies with the most at stake in the debate over the future of space traffic coordination. Industry sources told Ars that some companies are concerned a catastrophic collision in low-Earth orbit might trigger a wave of burdensome regulations, an outcome they would like to avoid.
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Continue/Read Original Article Here: Nearly everyone opposes Trump’s plan to kill space traffic control program – Ars Technica
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