TraCSS visual. Photo: NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce

Slingshot Aerospace on Nov. 25received a potential $13.3 million contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to develop the user interface for a new space traffic coordination system that will used by satellite operators worldwide and provide them with notifications of potential in-space collisions.

The award for the presentation layer of the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) has a $5.3 million one-year development period and four one-year options.

Slingshot said it will leverage its Beacon space traffic coordination software to develop the presentation layer. The company said that in the past year its data shows that satellite operators experienced a 17% increase in close approaches between satellites.

TraCSS.gov is expected to be online by late 2025 to support the transition of commercial users from the existing space-track.org site. NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce was given responsibility for space traffic coordination in 2018 from the Defense Department.

NOAA said that Slingshot will work with the TraCSS systems integrator to launch the TraCSS.gov website. In March, the agency awarded Parsons Corp. a $15.5 million contract for systems integration and cloud management services. Parsons will develop the software backbone for the operational TraCSS platform, including the space situational awareness data repository and the application layer.

This story was first published by Defense Daily