American and Chinese officials met recently to discuss space situational awareness (SSA) data, part of broader efforts by the U.S. to better understand emerging national SSA systems. Sandra Magnus, chief engineer for the Office of Space Commerce’s Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS, said the head of the office, Richard DalBello, met with Chinese counterparts on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan, earlier this month. DalBello “recently had some really good conversations with his Chinese counterparts at the IAC meeting in Baku,” she said during a panel discussion at AIAA’s ASCEND conference here Oct. 23, later stating she didn’t have details about the substance of the discussions. Those talks, she said, were linked to discussions about creating a “federated network” of regional SSA providers, which requires understanding what data they have to offer. “One of the charges for the Office of Space Commerce is to go out and start trying to have dialogues with some of these organizations and figure out where’s the mutual ground we can meet in the context of safety” in terms of what data can be shared and how. “TraCSS envisions the future of SSA to be a globally federated system of providers with a series of interconnected national or regional hubs providing SSA information and services to spacecraft operators,” DalBello said in a statement to SpaceNews Oct. 24. “The first steps in implementing such a vision would be to engage in a broad international dialogue focused on standards and best practices, and this dialogue should be coordinated with the ongoing work of the UN on long-term sustainability.”
Full story : U.S. and Chinese officials meet to discuss space safety.
