LeoLabs, the company with the largest and most comprehensive catalog of objects in low Earth orbit, announced it received a Consolidated Pathfinder order from NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) for the development of the civil-led, national Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS).
Through this contract, OSC will be able to leverage LeoLabs’ in-house expertise, artificial intelligence techniques, and the largest commercial dataset of over 20,000 objects and millions of daily conjunction data messages.
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“Just as air traffic management is critical for flight safety, space traffic coordination is critical for space safety,” said LeoLabs Chief Executive Officer Dan Ceperley. “The number of satellites in LEO grew by ~45% in 2023 and is expected to grow by an additional ~35% in 2024. This, coupled with the growth of space debris, means more coordination is needed to prevent collisions. LeoLabs is delighted to be a foundational layer of the US Traffic Coordination System for Space, the world’s most advanced system enabling enhanced space safety and sustainability.”
The Consolidated Pathfinder is the first of a series of pathfinder projects aimed at supporting the development of TraCSS. This order demonstrates the rapid progress made by the US Government in developing this system and fulfilling Space Policy Directive-3 (SPD-3), which calls for the development of a national STM service managed by a civil government agency. The US is not only demonstrating its leadership in space safety but is also signaling its ongoing support for the space industry by integrating commercial solutions.
SOURCE: PRNewswire