NOAA order will advance the National Space Traffic Coordination System
NewsJanuary 22, 2024
MENLO PARK, Calif. Orbital information provider LeoLabs won a Consolidated Pathfinder order from NOAA's Office of Space Commerce (OSC) for the development of the civil-led, national Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS).
Under the terms of the contract, OSC will leverage LeoLabs' in-house expertise, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, and its commercial dataset of over 20,000 objects and millions of daily conjunction data messages.
According to the LeoLabs announcement, the Consolidated Pathfinder is the first of a series of pathfinder projects intended to support the development of TraCSS and is an example of the government's rapid progress in developing this system and fulfilling Space Policy Directive-3 (SPD-3), which calls for the development of a national space traffic management service managed by a civil government agency.
"Just as air traffic management is critical for flight safety, space traffic coordination is critical for space safety," said LeoLabs CEO Dan Ceperley. "The number of satellites in LEO grew by ~45% in 2023 and is expected to grow by an additional ~35% in 2024. This, coupled with the growth of space debris, means more coordination is needed to prevent collisions."
