Office of Space Commerce weighing options for TraCSS user fees

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has not yet decided whether to charge for space safety data despite a change in space policy enabling the government to do so.

A provision of the space policy executive order issued by the White House in December removed the phrase “free of direct user fees” from Space Policy Directive 3, the 2018 policy from the first Trump administration that authorized the Commerce Department to establish a civil space traffic coordination system.

The December policy replaced that phrase with “commercial and other relevant use” or similar wording. Many in the space industry interpreted the change as enabling the Commerce Department to charge user fees for access to the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS.

During a panel at the Goddard Space Science Symposium on March 12, administration officials said that, despite the change in policy, they have made no decision to charge fees for access to space safety data.

“The changes in the language are not reflective of a solution set. They’re reflective of a trade space,” said Charlie Powell, assistant director for space and spectrum at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The executive order, he argued, reaffirmed SPD-3. “We actually think Space Policy Directive 3 is an exceedingly useful policy, so much so we reissued it, minus a few words,” he said.

“It didn’t say go do this,” Taylor Jordan, assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and acting director of the Office of Space Commerce, said of potential user fees. “It eliminated the words, so it gives us the flexibility to go look at that.”

He said the Office of Space Commerce, which is leading development of TraCSS, is “beginning the conversations” about what form any user fees might take.

“There’s a lot of different options on the table,” he said, such as an in-kind contribution of data from users. “We’re not dead set on applying some type of user-fee construct to SPD-3 for these systems, but it gives us the flexibility to have those conversations.”

Powell noted that the executive order said the United States should be a “standards and services leader” in areas such as the sustainability of space operations.

“A standards and services leader can take many different forms, and we want to make sure that the policy of the United States is reflective of all the different solution sets that are available,” he said. “It may not look like a government-funded solution set. It may require us to think about commercial incentives to buy down the risk and co-invest with commercial players.”

He noted the study of those options comes amid rapid changes in the commercial space situational awareness market. In January, SpaceX announced its own space traffic management system, Stargaze, that it plans to offer free of charge to satellite operators willing to share their maneuver plans. Anduril Industries announced March 11 that it is acquiring ExoAnalytic Solutions, a company that operates one of the world’s largest commercial networks of telescopes used to track satellites and space debris.

“I think the policy ecosystem that we want to promote is one that is agile and reflective of the facts on the ground,” he said. “Looking forward, we’re going to try to be adaptive.”

The potential changes to fees and operations of TraCSS are part of broader concerns in the industry about the future of the system. The administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal sought to cancel TraCSS, claiming the system was behind schedule. House and Senate appropriations bills restored at least partial funding for the system.

TraCSS was scheduled to roll out the first “production version” of the system early this year but has not announced that milestone. The Office of Space Commerce announced Feb. 4 that it was opening a waitlist for satellite operators interested in becoming users of TraCSS but did not disclose when TraCSS would enter full service.

Separately, Janice Starzyk, deputy director of the Office of Space Commerce, announced on social media March 13 that she would step back from that role, with a transition planned over the next few weeks.

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