OSC Strengthens Partnerships at Space Symposium 2025
From April 7 – 10, the Office of Space Commerce attended the 2025 Space Symposium as part of a NOAA delegation led by Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for International and Space Affairs Juan Caro and NESDIS Deputy Associate Administrator for Systems Irene Parker.
The NOAA delegation participated in a number of engagements with U.S. industry representatives and held bilateral meetings with international partners including the European Space Agency, Norway, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Italy, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Throughout these discussions, NOAA and its partners discussed their productive collaboration in furtherance of mutual interests and missions.
Highlights:
On Monday, April 7, the Office of Space Commerce’s Policy, Advocacy, and International Division Director Gabriel Swiney joined several industry experts in a regulatory panel during the Space Symposium’s “Space Law & Regulation” track, where he highlighted the Office of Space Commerce’s role in Earth remote sensing licensing and discussed the future of U.S. commercial space policy.
Later in the week, Gabriel sat down with United Launch Alliance’s Senior VP for Vulcan Development, Mark Peller, for a fireside chat during Symposium’s young professional-focused “New Generation Space Leaders Breakfast.” Throughout their conversation, Gabriel offered his advice to students and young professionals interested in pursuing a career in space law and policy – describing his winding career journey from the State Department as a lawyer working in Baghdad, to a NASA policy expert and drafter of the Artemis Accords, to his current role as OSC’s director of space policy and advocacy.
Also on Monday, OSC Acting Director, Janice Starzyk, and Head of International SSA Engagement, Mariel Borowitz, participated in an “International Space Situational Awareness Policy Exchange” co-organized by the Aerospace Corporation and Maui Economic Development Board. Janice provided updates on the Office of Space Commerce’s Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) to an audience of leaders from international civil and military space situational awareness programs. Later, Mariel discussed OSC’s continuing study work with the European Union’s Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) program, building on previous studies offering comparisons between the two programs.
On Tuesday April 8, the Office of Space Commerce met with representatives from the “Space Situational Awareness Coalition,” an informal industry group consisting of commercial SSA providers such as COMSPOC, ExoAnalytic, Kayhan, Kratos, LeoLabs, and Slingshot Aerospace, to discuss public-private collaboration on the Traffic Coordination System for Space. Later that day, the OSC team and DAS Caro sat down with leadership from several space industry trade associations, to speak about the Department of Commerce’s support for the U.S. commercial space sector.
On Wednesday April 9, Janice was featured in a main stage keynote. In her speech, Janice discussed the TraCSS program’s updated Integrated Program Schedule, its 2025 capability roadmap, and displayed visual examples of the in-work TraCSS Presentation Layer – the graphical user interface for the program. The slides Janice presented are available for public download on OSC’s TraCSS documents webpage.
Throughout the week, the Office of Space Commerce team joined DAS Caro and colleagues from NESDIS and the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Space Affairs for a series of bilateral meetings and dialogues with leaders and representatives from international governments and space programs – including the European Space Agency, Norway, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Italy, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In these discussions, all sides provided updates on their governments’ policies and programs, discussed cooperation with NOAA, and addressed progress on international space situational awareness coordination.
