LeoLabs Awarded Contract From the US Department of
Commerce to Support Space Traffic Management
Prototype
Sept. 9,
2022
LeoLabs,
Inc., announced an award to provide data and
services to the US Department of Commerce to support
the development of a US civil- led Space Traffic
Management (STM) system. The announcement was made
at the 9th session of the National Space Council in
Houston, Texas.
Under this
contract, LeoLabs will provide its operationally
proven tracking and conjunction alert data products
for a subset of Resident Space Objects (RSOs),
including both real-time and archived data sets. The
Department of Commerce will utilize these orbital
data products to support testing and evaluation of a
prototype STM system.
"We are
honored to be selected by the Department of Commerce
to provide high accuracy tracking and conjunction
alert data products for its Space Traffic Management
system," said Dan Ceperley, LeoLabs CEO and
co-founder. "The traffic in LEO is growing
exponentially, driven by commercial innovation and
economic opportunity. Our space operations
infrastructure is the only system designed to scale
with that growth. LeoLabs was founded to drive
innovation in Space Traffic Management, therefore we
look forward to working with the US Government on
this effort to ensure the continued success of the
space industry."
This
agreement demonstrates continued US leadership in
STM and marks significant progress by the Department
of Commerce towards fulfilling Space Policy
Directive-3 (SPD-3), which calls for the development
of a new national STM service managed by a civil
government agency. This contract was issued as a
sole-source award, providing the Department of
Commerce access to LeoLabs space safety services
which are currently utilized for over 60% of
operational satellites in LEO.
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