Pick an agency, any agency, Space Review
“Congress, though, rejected the proposal, with appropriators skeptical that Commerce was the best agency to handle civil STM. Prior to SPD-3, the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, had been the leading candidate to handle STM in addition to its work licensing commercial launches and reentries. While the administration decided to give that authority to the Office of Space Commerce, some in Congress still thought AST was the better home. … The report, led by a panel chaired by Michael Dominguez, former assistant secretary of the Air Force and which included former NASA administrator Sean O’Keefe and former NRO director Marty Faga, was released August 20. And, much to the relief of the administration, it concluded that the Office of Space Commerce was indeed the best agency for the job. “Following its evaluative criteria, the Panel determines OSC to be best suited to perform STM tasks within the federal government,” the report succinctly stated.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

3 replies on “Who Should Be America's Space Traffic Cop?”

  1. If not the U.S. who would be capable of doing it? Even if the UN steps up the U.S. will still need to do the heavy lifting in terms of the systems and technology needed.

    1. The technology needed is more reasonable than you might think. When I was an orbital analyst for the Air Force many years ago the job of maintaining the satellite catalog was very difficult. We had teams of orbital analysts, computer operators, multiple computers that had to back each other up, unique data lines, etc etc etc. Today the things I can do with my MacBook Pro are amazing – I can’t process that number of observations but can do a lot. Companies like LeoLabs with their sensors can do almost everything that the DoD can do – and with newer hardware and software.

      Between companies like LeoLabs, and the AGI ComSpOC, and with funding from someone – we could close the CSpOC and not realize it.

  2. This could be supervised by the Dept of Commerce but we need to leave the paralysis behind and get some innovative company like LeoLabs or AGI to do the work. BTW I am not connected with either.

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