Jason Y. Kim
Chief of Staff, Office of Space Commerce
NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce
Mr. Jason Y. Kim is Chief of Staff at the Office of Space Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. In this role, he helps the Director manage the development and operations of a growing organization dedicated to serving the needs of the U.S. commercial space industry. He also supports the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Commerce in their roles on the National Space Council and the Commerce Department’s Commercial Space Coordinating Committee.
Prior to becoming Chief of Staff in November 2023, Mr. Kim spent 25 years as a policy analyst in OSC, promoting commercial space interests during the development and implementation of national space policies and strategies. Specific areas of involvement included GPS, export controls and regulatory streamlining, space situational awareness, and NOAA use of commercial space services. Mr. Kim served as Acting Chief of Staff from February to June 2023.
During May-November 2022, Mr. Kim was on temporary assignment to the State Department’s Office of Space Affairs. In that role, he led or participated in a variety of space diplomacy activities, including bilateral and multilateral space cooperation engagements, coordination of space licensing/export control issues, and U.S. responses to international space debris incidents.
Since joining Commerce in 1998, Mr. Kim has helped develop over a dozen Presidential space policies, including the current National Space Policy, U.S. Space Priorities Framework, U.S. Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Policy, Executive Order on PNT resilience, Space Policy Directive 2 on streamlining space regulations, National Space Transportation Policy, and U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Space Policy. He contributed to the satellite export control reform that relieved most space items from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). He participates in international engagements to promote U.S. leadership and market access, particularly with Europe and Japan. He has organized multiple studies and workshops on space markets and business opportunities.
From 2000-2023, Mr. Kim served on the interagency staff of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based PNT and its predecessor. In this role, Mr. Kim helped coordinate GPS policy issues among civilian and military stakeholders. These included the May 2000 Presidential decision to stop degrading civilian GPS accuracy, negotiation of the 2004 GPS-Galileo cooperation agreement with Europe, and protecting GPS users from radio interference and patent royalties. He also created GPS.gov, the top site in web searches about GPS.
In 1996-1997, Mr. Kim worked at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, supporting a variety of space-related activities. He helped President Clinton and Vice President Gore manage the International Space Station program, worked to protect NASA’s budget, and organized White House events related to Mars exploration. He assisted in the rollout of new space policies and helped coordinate interagency decisions on issues such as launch trade and the launch of a space probe with nuclear materials on board.
Prior to that, Mr. Kim was a space policy consultant providing business intelligence on space-related legislation and policy for various U.S. and international clients.
Mr. Kim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard in 1994. He received a Superior Honor Award from the Department of State for his role in negotiating the GPS-Galileo Agreement of 2004. In 2008, he was named one of GPS World’s 50+ Leaders to Watch.