"TraCSS has done useful work, but eight years after SPD‑3, the government still has not delivered the architecture the policy envisioned. TraCSS remains a pilot," said Andrew D'Uva.
TraCSS versus the promise of SPD‑3
The Commerce Department's Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) was conceived to implement the 2018 Space Policy Directive‑3 (SPD‑3): improve space tracking by incorporating observational data and analysis from U.S. commercial spacewatch companies. Yet government and industry sources who spoke with Breaking Defense say TraCSS remains a pilot and has not delivered that architecture. Andrew D'Uva explained the pilot's software cannot yet fuse operator-supplied ephemerides with Department of Defense observations and trajectory analyses — a capability identified as necessary to generate more accurate conjunction assessments. Even commercial SSA observations and analytic services that could augment government tracking are “not yet part of the operational baseline,” according to experts quoted in the reporting.
Budget fights: the White House, Congress, and FY27 posture
Funding has been erratic. The White House's FY26 budget proposal attempted to cut the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) FY25 funding from $65 million to $10 million, a move aimed at keeping only the office itself. Congress instead appropriated $50 million, effectively leaving roughly $40 million available for TraCSS. For FY27, Commerce requested $11 million for OSC with $1 million to "containerize" the TraCSS pilot while the administration considered new operating and financial structures, including possible user fees. The House Appropriations Committee in May included $50 million for OSC in its FY27 Commerce bill and added language calling for continuation of TraCSS; the Senate committee had not acted as of the reporting, though sources expected the Senate to restore funding given its stronger FY26 support. Interagency conversations and industry consultations have intensified in the FY28 budget run‑up, and multiple sources told Breaking Defense that decisions about FY28 budgets are coming down to the wire.
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End the scrambleIndustry perspective and the pathfinder program
Industry participants have mixed views but widespread frustration. Jim Cooper, who leads COMPOC’s SSA business, said bluntly: "We have concluded that the current implementation of TraCSS for space traffic coordination and management is misaligned, severely misaligned, with the policy that established it, SPD‑3, and we’re not sure why it is continuing down the path it is on." Companies including COMSPOC, Kayhan Space, LeoLabs, Slingshot Aerospace, and SpaceNav — and firms such as Anduril, following its acquisition of ExoAnalytic — have received OSC pathfinder funds to test commercial tracking data. Some industry officials argue those pathfinders were smallscale and that the program so far has largely wrapped Commerce branding around existing DoD data and software rather than integrating commercial services at operational scale.
Options on the table for TraCSS and DoD operations
- Scrap TraCSS and rely on a purely private market for space safety data, leaving operators to buy commercial SSA services. The tradeoff: taxpayers would avoid program costs, but not every operator may pay for warnings and data, raising collision risk.
- Terminate TraCSS and revert collision‑warning responsibilities to existing DoD systems — notably the 19th Space Defense Squadron at the Naval Support Facility in Dahlgren, Va. That would preserve services to civil, commercial and foreign operators but would re‑impose the very Pentagon resource burden TraCSS was designed to relieve.
- Replace TraCSS with a government‑owned, contractor‑operated (GOCO) program or a contractor‑owned, contractor‑operated (COCO) system funded by government. Andrew D'Uva described one variant in positive terms: "The government can competitively procure mature commercial capabilities to reprocess appropriate Space Surveillance Network metric observations, fuse them with commercial and operator data, generate better orbit solutions for space safety, and provide conjunction assessment as a basic public service." The open question for either variant is which agency — DoD or Commerce — will pay and operate the service.
How COMSPOC, Kayhan Space, LeoLabs, and the 19th Space Defense Squadron are positioned
COMSPOC and commercial SSA firms that have taken OSC pathfinder funds stand to gain if TraCSS evolves into a commercially oriented program that fuses government and industry data at scale; conversely, they risk prolonged uncertainty if funding continues only as short annual infusions without a stable, administrative commitment. The 19th Space Defense Squadron currently provides collision warnings to non‑military operators and would be the fallback if TraCSS is wound down — a move that Andrew D'Uva warned would inappropriately shift civil collision‑warning workload back onto Space Force operators.
Rich Dalbello, OSC's former head during the Biden administration, acknowledged that TraCSS has not incorporated commercial products as quickly as hoped and blamed the program's pace in part on inconsistent political and budgetary support. That inconsistency, several sources said, helps explain why a pilot intended to execute an eight‑year‑old policy remains short of its objectives.
Decisions in the coming budget cycle will determine whether TraCSS is scaled into the commercial‑government hybrid SPD‑3 envisioned architecture, replaced by a procured alternative, or allowed to limp along — and they will answer the central question many officials are now asking: what is the Plan B if TraCSS disappears?
