Commerce begins beta tests of space traffic coordination system | Space

WASHINGTON — The Office of Space Commerce has started beta tests of its new space traffic coordination system, providing conjunction notices to a handful of operators.

The Office of Space Commerce, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the Department of Commerce, announced Sept. 30 the beginning of phase 1.0 of its Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), the civil space traffic coordination system that will ultimately take over for the Defense Department.

Nine satellite operators are involved in this initial phase of TraCSS: The Aerospace Corporation, Eutelsat OneWeb, Georgia Tech, Intelsat, Iridium, Maxar, NOAA, Planet and Telesat. Those organizations operate between a handful of satellites to, in the case of OneWeb and Planet, several hundred, and in orbits from LEO to GEO. About 1,000 satellites overall are included in this phase of TraCSS.

Each of the operators will receive conjunction data messages, notices of potential close approaches of these satellites with other objects, every four hours. Those operators will provide feedback on the service that will be incorporated into later phases of TraCSS.

“The operators that are working with this know that this is not operational data yet. This is not data that they should be relying on for safety services yet,” said Rich DalBello, director of the Office of Space…