OSC describes itself as<\/a> \u201cis the principal unit for space commerce policy activities within the Department of Commerce\u201d and says its \u201cmission is to foster the conditions for the economic growth and technological advancement of the U.S. commercial space industry.\u201d<\/p>\nThe letters were addressed to Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), as well as Reps. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Grace Meng (D-N.Y.),\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of OSC\u2019s most important functions is to provide space traffic coordination support to U.S. satellite operators, similar to the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s role in air traffic control for the U.S. airline industry,\u201d the Monday letters read.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelping the U.S. space industry operate safely in an increasingly congested space domain ensures space-based services like broadband internet and weather forecasting are available to the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Moran\u2019s office, Rogers\u2019s office and Meng\u2019s office for comment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been supportive of the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) and of their retaining space situational awareness and space traffic management responsibilities because these are inherently governmental responsibilities \u2014 despite the Administration\u2019s shortsighted and potentially dangerous view to the contrary,\u201d Van Hollen said in a statement emailed to The Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue to support funding for the OSC and its ability to continue building out the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS),” he added.<\/p>\n
When reached for comment, Rogers said in an emailed statement that \u201cthe committee has received their request and will take it into consideration as work continues for FY26 appropriations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Updated at 3:53 p.m. EDT<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Space industry companies urged Congress on Monday not to cut funding to the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) in multiple letters. \u201cWe write today on behalf of more than 450 U.S. space, satellite, and defense companies to urge the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science to provide sufficient funding for the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) in the Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations bill \u2013 specifically funding OSC at $65M, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wakeupknotts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}