Defunding TraCSS a Blow to the Orbital Commons: Academic
NOAA's proposal to defund the civil Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) is based on a faulty premise that the commercial sector can replicate it, University of Texas at Austin professor Moriba Jah wrote Wednesday. No commercial space situational awareness…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
company today has full-sky coverage or the kind of transparent data needed to build trust internationally, said Jah, who leads the school's space security and safety program. However, such companies maintain they can manage space traffic "because marketing always outruns capability." With TraCSS gone, the burden will be back on DOD, he said, and while it "does good work in tracking threats. ... their mission is not public safety" or transparency. Ending TraCSS "hands over the keys of the orbital commons to a cartel of self-interested vendors."