Space Regulatory Glossary Industry

space traffic management

noun

1. The set of regulatory, technical, and operational measures for safely coordinating the movement of objects in space — analogous to air traffic management for aviation.
2. Currently fragmented across military tracking (U.S. Space Force), civil coordination (Office of Space Commerce), and operator-to-operator agreements. A unified civil space traffic management framework is under development in the U.S. and internationally, driven by the rapid growth in orbital population from mega-constellations.

Related terms

space situational awareness The knowledge and characterization of the space environment, including the location, trajectory, and status of natural… conjunction assessment The process of predicting and evaluating potential close approaches between objects in orbit. orbital debris Non-functional human-made objects in Earth orbit, including defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, fragmentation… U.S. Space Force The space service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, established in December 2019 as part of the Department of the Air… Office of Space Commerce A bureau within NOAA and the U.S. Department of Commerce responsible for promoting the growth of the commercial space…

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