Mark Daley, deputy for operations at the office of space commerce, said a memorandum of understanding could be signed soon that would facilitate the transfer of space traffic management responsibilities from the Pentagon to the Department of Commerce (DOC), SpaceNews reported Tuesday.
The Trump administration issued the Space Policy Directive-3 mandating Commerce in 2018 to take over space traffic management functions from the Department of Defense (DoD).
“We developed an initial concept on what the architectural layout would actually be, with inputs from DoD and NASA,” Daley said Tuesday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies-hosted virtual conference.
“We put together a plan for the next several years. We’ve looked at legal authorities and are trying to verify that we do have the authorities to execute the SPD-3 mission,” he added.
DoD and Commerce have been working together in the past several months to determine options how to facilitate the transition once Congress allocates funding and issues authorities.
“We’re still awaiting funding for the FY21 appropriation but we are still trying to get industry’s inputs,” Daley said.
