NOAA Awards TraCSS Presentation Layer Contract
On November 25, 2024, NOAA awarded a contract to Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., of El Segundo, California, to provide the website and user experience, or Presentation Layer, for the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS). TraCSS is the civil space situational awareness system being fielded by NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce to support space safety and sustainability. The Presentation Layer contract has a value of $5.3 million over 12 months, with options to extend for up to four more years.
Under the contract, Slingshot will work with the TraCSS system integrator to launch the TraCSS.gov website in preparation for user migration from space-track.org during fiscal year 2025.
“This contract award represents the next major step forward in our effort to provide spaceflight safety services to global space operators,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “By leveraging Slingshot’s commercial, off-the-shelf solutions, we expect to have TraCSS.gov online and ready to sign up public users by late 2025.”
“We are delighted to welcome Slingshot to the team to help us bring TraCSS to the entire world,” said Richard DalBello, Director of NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce. “Their visualization tools will make our technical data accessible via a modern interface reflecting the latest innovations in software and user experience design.”
provided by Slingshot Aerospace.
Slingshot Aerospace is a space technology company focused on improving space safety, sustainability, and security. Its space traffic coordination product, Slingshot Beacon, will provide the starting point and framework for the TraCSS presentation layer. Beacon is a spaceflight coordination and communication platform designed to reduce the risk of on-orbit collisions by providing satellite operators with a centralized tool to exchange data and coordinate maneuvers.
TraCSS is a modern, cloud-based IT system that provides safety notifications of potential in-space collisions to satellite operators. As an agile software development, it is being released in several phases. TraCSS Phase 1.0, launched in September 2024, is generating and delivering conjunction data messages (CDMs) to a beta user group representing approximately 1,000 operational satellites. TraCSS CDMs are currently distributed via the Space-Track.org website managed by the Department of Defense. In the future, TraCSS CDMs and other services will be delivered via TraCSS.gov.
The full set of requirements for the TraCSS Presentation Layer can be found in the Request for Proposal issued August 1, 2024.