Podcast Christine Joseph NOAA

The 27th edition of the Novaspace "Satellites to be Built and Launched” report forecasts that an average of over 3,700 satellites will be launched annually between 2024 and 2033 – equivalent to 10 satellites per day.

"From a digital services perspective, we've intentionally structured tracks to be able to scale with the number of objects that are going to be growing in space.” Christine Joseph, Office of Space Commerce

NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) is developing the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) to provide basic space situational awareness (SSA) data and services to civil and private space operators and to support spaceflight safety, space sustainability, and international coordination.

On this edition of The Ex Terra Podcast, Tom Patton talks with Christine Joseph, Policy Advisor to NOAA currently supporting the TraCSS program.

On September 30, 2024, OSC announced that the initial phase of TraCSS has begun delivering spaceflight safety services to a beta group of satellite operators. For the first time, satellite operators are receiving basic SSA data and space traffic coordination (STC) services from the Commerce Department.

"From a digital services perspective, we've intentionally structured tracks to be able to scale with the number of objects that are going to be growing in space. That's a data problem that we've anticipated and have planned for in how we've built the system," Joseph said.

Nine satellite operators – NOAA, Maxar, Telesat, Intelsat, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Planet Labs, Eutelsat Oneweb, Iridium, and the Aerospace Corporation – now receive validated safety notifications from TraCSS in the form of conjunction data messages (CDMs, alerts describing potential collisions). TraCSS will add satellite operators and provide more data and services as the program progresses.