Supporting the Traffic Coordination System for Space.

In June 2025, NOAA's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal planned to gut the Office of Space Commerce and terminate federal funding for the traffic coordination system for space better known as TRAX. Without a credible, well-resourced civilian authority, does the United States risk losing its leadership role in shaping the future of space? This is T-Minus Deep Space. I'm Maria Vermazes. The future of TRAX is up in the air. I spoke to Audrey Schaffer, Vice President of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace, which is a space data and AI company that serves the space domain awareness and space operations market about why so many commercial companies like Slingshot support a federal space traffic system. I've worked in the space industry for really my entire career going on about 20 years at this point. I spent most of that time working for the US government, primarily in the Pentagon working on space policy, but also at the White House as well as the State Department. So I've really just seen all aspects of space policy. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Audrey, for joining me today. We're talking about policy today and goodness gracious, it's been busy in the space world lately. One of the hot topics in our world has been TRAX. Depending on when we've been recording and what's been going on, things have been changing. So I figure, so people know what's going on as time of this recording. Can you get me up to speak a little bit on what's been going on with TRAX? Yeah, absolutely. It has been kind of a wild couple of months when it comes to the Department of Commerce's efforts to stand up a space traffic coordination system, which of course is called TRAX. Earlier this year, we'd heard rumors that potentially the administration might be looking to defund the program and essentially revert a lot of the responsibilities for traffic coordination back to the Defense Department. And in fact, those rumors were confirmed a little over a month ago when the administration released the final details of their FY26 budget request for the Department of Commerce. They proposed taking the Office of Space Commerce's budget from $65 million all the way down to $10 million, really leaving only enough money to do just kind of bare bones policy and regulatory work. This really kind of galvanized the industry to demonstrate its support, not only for the Office of Space Commerce as a really important partner to the commercial space industry, but also specifically for the Civil Space Traffic Coordination Mission. As you, and I'm sure most of your listeners know, there's a reason that the Department of Commerce was charged with creating civil space traffic coordination. This is a mission that historically was done by the Defense Department, even though it's really not an inherently military function. And in fact, it was the first Trump administration that put the policy in place that would transition space traffic coordination from DoD to commerce. And so it was not only kind of a headscratcher to think that the second Trump administration wanted to undo policy established in the first Trump administration, but at this point, really because of progress made during the Biden administration, the track system is almost up and running. I mean, they've actually made incredible progress in the last two years when they finally did receive funding. And they're already in a beta testing phase and just months from becoming operational. In early July, industry seeing these proposed cuts organize a letter by seven industry associations representing more than 450 companies, pretty much the entire US space industry and more showing advocating to restore that funding. And anyway, to make a long story short, here we are now. We've seen both the Senate and the House have put out draft bills funding the Office of Space Commerce, not quite at the same level as last year, but certainly far from zero. The Senate recommended providing the Office of Space Commerce with $60 million or just a few million dollars short from last year and explicitly provided direction not to cancel the tracks program. And the House recommended $50 million, which of course is a bit lower, but still far from zero and essentially to continue the mission. The rug pull of the funding for this was definitely a head scratcher indeed. I remember when the news dropped, a lot of us just were very confused. So I'm wondering if just to get a sense of, I hate to ask you to be like the devil's advocate, but what was the argument that the administration was making for why tracks didn't need to continue? This is the part where did they say what their reasoning was? Yeah, there is of course a rationale in the budget justifications, but to be candid, it's kind of confusing. And I can't really say that I fully understand it. Yeah. And so I don't really want to put words in their mouth, but it seems to imply that they in fact think that a combination of free DOD data and private sector technology can meet the need. And while certainly, I think there is a very important role for the private sector for companies like Slingshot to provide space traffic coordination services, that doesn't obviate the need for a US government function that actually brings in private sector capabilities and builds the world-class civil space traffic coordination system. One of the main arguments actually that we have been using when we talk about why it's so important to have this government system is actually US leadership. If you think about the history of air traffic control and the fact that the US had such a strong role in shaping that international system, the result is that international air traffic control in countries all over the world was largely built on US standards and in fact, the default language of air traffic control worldwide is English. So for the very same reasons, we need this US government system so the US can really go toe to toe with other countries like China and the European Union who themselves have or are establishing their own version of tracks so that we can make sure that the future of space traffic coordination is built on the best practices of US space operations, whether those are commercial or government. We'll be right back. So let's talk a little bit about what actually goes into building tracks and all the different layers for lack of better terminology. And I know that you all are very much involved in that. So can you walk me through some of that? Absolutely. So tracks will have a number of different components. Primarily the guts of it, if you will, are the data and the analytics that they use to predict when two objects in space might come close enough to result in a potential collision. And so if you think about the contributions of the private sector, certainly the Commerce Department has been keen to purchase commercial space object tracking data. So Slingshot Aerospace has a worldwide network of ground-based optical telescopes doing uncued and cued detection and tracking of objects all the way from low-earth orbit up into CIS lunar space. And the Department of Commerce will need data like that. Now, of course, the DoD also has a network of sensors that it uses to track objects in space, and that is what Commerce used to create the initial version of tracks. But the reality is that DoD network was really built for a different purpose. You know, actually historically, the network, most of it, was built for missile warning, which is completely different. But even in the more modern investments, the sensors that DoD wants are those that really provide a detailed view of the objects that are potentially threatening. So what we call high-interest objects or potential threats. You know, DoD doesn't necessarily need to track the tens of thousands of objects in space that are really just going about their business day to day, staying in their orbital slot, not really causing any harm to anybody, or even having the potential to cause harm. So it's a very different function to scan the sky all the time and just watch out for where things are versus to key in on a few key things and really understand everything you can about them. So in any case, Commerce using that DoD data is fine, it's sort of a starting point, but they're really going to need that additional commercial data as the space object population grows. Likewise, you need to do something with that data. You need to derive the insights. You need to fuse the data for multiple sources. You need to do the conjunction assessment to see where the objects are going to be in the future and whether they're going to run into each other. And that, of course, is also where commercial comes in. And of course, the last, if I could, just the last piece of the puzzle, what you alluded to is what we call presentation services or the user interface. So think the UX, the design that individual satellite operators use to interact with the system. And this is where Slingshot Aerospace won the contract last year to really build that interactive experience. As you're talking about being able to understand all these unique events, potentially a conjunction event, that kind of a thing. AI comes to mind as something that I hear a lot about. And I know that you all just announced actually something that's AI related that feels like a sort of a somewhat related here. So I didn't want to give it away. I wanted to ask you about that. If you could tell me more about what you all just announced that is AI related, that feels like it would slot in nicely here. Yeah, thanks, Maria. So we just announced TALOS, the Thinking Agent for Logical Operations and Strategy, which is an autonomous AI-powered agent. So think agentic AI that's designed to mimic realistic satellite behavior in training and simulation environments. So if you think about learning how to conduct space operations, this AI system essentially is your training buddy. Imagine, actually, there's someone in our company that likes to use a Mario Kart example, if I could. Absolutely can. If you think about Mario Kart and you're, let's just say you're Mario and you're playing in, you're doing the Grand Prix, right? It's just you playing on your console. There are seven other cars who you're racing against in the game. And now Mario Kart is not AI-enabled, but perhaps one day it will be. Maybe one day. That's right. Think about all those other cars really being agentic AI. So they are trained to know how to drive on the road, to know how to shoot off shells, to know where the shortcuts are, and really to make your job a little more difficult to win the race. And so TALOS is exactly like that. It's an AI agent that we can train for a number of different space operations to be either a co-pilot for someone who's looking for recommendations on how to operate their satellite, or an adversary in a training scenario where you're learning how to protect and defend yourself, or even just an educational tool to help learn the fundamentals of how to conduct space operations. We have worked with the US Space Force on TALOS, engaging with their space aggressors squadron, who are the humans who are trained to be essentially adversary satellite operators. And historically, they essentially go to war games and exercises and pretend to be red, if you will, and challenge guardians to respond to their tactics and their procedures. And TALOS can essentially augment those kinds of humans to really expand the scale of simulated adversaries and frankly make these scenarios more realistic. So when we think about TALOS in a national security context, we're really helping guardians, space force guardians, prepare for potential space war fighting. That's fascinating. The future is now. As you're describing that, that is really fascinating. And now I'm thinking about Mario Kart 2. So that analogy absolutely works on me. I want to make sure if there's anything else that you wanted to mention, I want to be sensitive to time. The floor is yours. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that I didn't ask about that you wanted to mention? Over to you. Yeah. Thanks, Maria. Well, first, just thanks so much again for having me on. And, you know, what I think I'd leave us with in this conversation really focused mostly on tracks, is just how much industry alignment is behind continuing the funding for the Office of Space Commerce and continuing to have this civil space traffic management mission. I think I said earlier in the discussion that this letter we organized was signed essentially by all the major US Space Industry Associations and more, just demonstrating that there's really consensus across big companies, small companies, traditional, non-traditional, you know, every sort of vertical within the space market to maintain the funding for this program. And so, you know, I'm really pleased to see that Congress took note of that support. And I really hope that the funding is continued through the final appropriations and tracks stays on track. That's T-minus Deep Space, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Please also fill out the survey and the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection, we bring you the people, the technology, and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at N2K.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Tre Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazis. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]