WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department is proposing to halt work on its space traffic coordination system while it develops a “new operating and financial structure” that may include user fees.
The department released April 21 the congressional justification document for its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal for its Departmental Management account, which includes the Office of Space Commerce. The office was moved from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the office of the commerce secretary as part of a commercial space executive order in August 2025.
A high-level budget released by the department April 3 included $11 million for the Office of Space Commerce. That was similar to the proposed $10 million for the office in the department’s 2026 budget request, which sought to cancel the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, a civil space traffic coordination system it has been developing.
That budget framework included no details about the office’s budget, but the funding level suggested the Commerce Department was again seeking to cancel TraCSS, which accounted for most of the office’s $65 million budget in 2024.
The more detailed congressional justification document states that it will effectively put TraCSS on hold while it considers alternative approaches for running the system.
“A small investment is included to support and preserve the beta system and build industry confidence while the Administration works to implement a new operating and financial structure, including the potential establishment of user fees to offset future costs,” the document states.
The document says that the office will “containerize the beta version of TraCSS for historical reference” and “explore user fee program optionality” for the program, but did not provide additional details.
A provision in an executive order in December deleted provisions in Space Policy Directive (SPD) 3, the 2018 policy that instructed the Commerce Department to establish a space traffic management system, requiring that space safety information be provided free of user fees. That appeared to open the door to having the Office of Space Commerce charge for access to TraCSS or a successor.
At a conference in March, administration officials said they had not decided whether they would charge user fees for space safety data.
“There’s a lot of different options on the table,” said Taylor Jordan, director of the Office of Space Commerce, 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.”
The budget proposal would also cut 16 positions in the Office of Space Commerce, presumably linked to TraCSS. The proposal would not affect the office’s other work, which includes licensing of commercial remote sensing satellite systems, development of a “mission authorization” framework for novel space activities, and advocacy for the U.S. commercial space industry.
The release of the congressional justification document, one of the last for the department’s various bureaus and administrations, comes just before Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testifies about the budget proposal before the Senate Appropriations Committee April 22 and the House Appropriations Committee April 23.