WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has not yet decided whether to charge for space safety data despite a change in space policy enabling the government to do so.
A provision of the space policy executive order issued by the White House in December removed the phrase "free of direct user fees" from Space Policy Directive 3, the 2018 policy from the first Trump administration that authorized the Commerce Department to establish a civil space traffic coordination system.
The December policy replaced that phrase with "commercial and other relevant use" or similar wording. Many in the space industry interpreted the change as enabling the Commerce Department to charge user fees for access to the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS.
