WASHINGTON — The Office of Space Commerce has selected three companies to participate in a pathfinder program that could lead to the incorporation of commercial data into its space traffic coordination system.
The office announced Jan. 19 that placed orders with COMSPOC, LeoLabs and Slingshot Aerospace for data and services related to objects in low Earth orbit. The orders are part of what the office calls a Consolidated Pathfinder project to test how the office can incorporate commercial space situational awareness (SSA) data.
The Office of Space Commerce is charged with establishing a civil space traffic coordination system, which it calls the Traffic Coordination System for Space or TraCSS. It is designed to take over from the Defense Department responsibilities for tracking space objects and providing warnings of potential conjunctions to government and commercial satellite operators.
“Through this pathfinder, and others to follow, we are working diligently toward incorporating commercial capabilities into TraCSS,” Rich DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce, said in a statement. “The Office of Space Commerce has always championed the government’s use of commercial space capabilities, and it is a core enabler of our own SSA program.”
Two of the companies will provide both catalogs of objects they track in low Earth orbit — LeoLabs using its network of radars and Slingshot with its group of optical telescopes — as well as related services. The third company, COMSPOC, will provide orbit determination services. A fourth company, yet to be selected, will provide data integrity services.
“We will be providing them the entire catalog, plus our expertise and insight, so they can then move to incorporate commercial data into the ultimate TraCSS system,” Kate Maliga, vice president of government affairs at LeoLabs, said in an interview. The company will also provide TraCSS with the conjunction data messages, or…
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