WASHINGTON — Senate appropriators have rejected an effort by the White House to terminate funding for a civil space traffic coordination system.
The Senate Appropriations Committee released July 18 the report for its fiscal year 2026 commerce, justice and science (CJS) funding bill, which includes NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. The committee approved the bill a day earlier on a 19-10 vote after a one-week delay linked to a provision unrelated to those agencies.
The bill includes $60 million for the Office of Space Commerce (OSC), located within NOAA, with direction for the office to continue work on its Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), a space traffic management system. NOAA had requested only $10 million for the office in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal in June, including no funding for TraCSS.
In the budget proposal, NOAA argued that the private sector could provide space situational awareness (SSA) and space traffic management (STM) services such as conjunction warnings after delays in setting up TraCSS. “In the convening time, private industry has proven that they have the capability and the business model to provide civil operators with SSA data and STM services using the releasable portion of the DOD catalog,” the budget request stated.
Senate appropriators rejected that argument, noting that Space Policy Directive 3, issued by the first Trump administration in 2018, explicitly directed the Commerce Department, through the Office of Space Commerce, to take over STM services from the Defense Department.
“In compliance with Space Policy Directive 3, the Committee continues to support efforts to transition non-defense space traffic management and space situational awareness responsibilities from the Department of Defense to OSC,” the report stated. “The responsibilities of space traffic management and space situational awareness are inherently governmental.”
The Senate’s decision to keep TraCSS funded comes after lobbying from industry in support of the effort. An industry coalition sent letters July 7 to the leadership of House and Senate appropriations subcommittees, asking them to keep TraCSS funded at 2025 levels of $65 million.
“Keeping space traffic coordination within the Department of Commerce preserves military resources for core defense missions and prevents the conflation of space safety with military control – critical to U.S. leadership in setting international standards and norms for space activities,” the letters stated.
That coalition represented more than 450 companies, including virtually all involved in space traffic management activities. Industry officials said it was not clear who within the government was seeking to cancel TraCSS and why.
House appropriators have not released the report accompanying their CJS spending bill, which a subcommittee favorably reported July 15. The bill does not specify funding levels for the Office of Space Commerce, a level of detail usually reserved for the bill’s accompanying report. That report is typically not released until the full committee marks up the bill, and that markup session has not yet been scheduled.
The Office of Space Commerce continues work on TraCSS, which is in beta testing. The office announced July 14 that SpaceX had become the 10th satellite operator to participate in the beta test, a major milestone as SpaceX is by far the largest satellite operator with its Starlink constellation.
“The active participation and invaluable feedback of all of TraCSS’ beta users have played a key role in OSC’s ability to release on-demand screening capacity ahead of schedule,” the office stated in the announcement about SpaceX joining the beta test. “Through industry’s collaboration, both as users of and contributors to the system, TraCSS is proceeding steadily toward production release scheduled for January 2026.”