Mariel Borowitz, space policy expert in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, has taken her expertise to Washington, where she serves part-time as the director of international space situational awareness engagement in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. 

NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce is developing a civil space situational awareness system — the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) — that could go live as soon as late 2024. Borowitz is helping to coordinate U.S. efforts with parallel activities in other nations. 

“I believe that productive international coordination is essential for space situational awareness — all space actors are operating in the same physical space, and we need to ensure that we have a shared understanding of where objects are in space and when those objects are in danger of colliding. We need to communicate quickly and effectively to address those risks,” she said.  

Borowitz’s invitation to join NOAA followed 2022 testimony before a Congressional committee, where she argued that moving the space situational awareness mission to a civil agency created opportunities for increased transparency and openness, improved international cooperation, and better engagement with the commercial and academic sectors. 

Space situational awareness involves monitoring the locations of satellites and debris, determining where these objects are likely to be in the future, and warning satellite and spacecraft operators of potential collisions.  

While the U.S. Department of Defense has traditionally taken the global lead in this role, other nations and private companies have begun their own tracking efforts. Discussions on whether the military should hand the role to a civil agency started under the Obama administration. The Trump administration moved forward with a plan that called for the transition of traffic coordination oversight to a civil agency and chose the Department of Commerce. The Biden administration has been executing this transition with the development of TraCSS. 

The TraCSS system will provide basic data, including collision warnings, using data from government and private sources. Private operators will be able to offer more sophisticated services to supplement the Commerce system. 

Borowitz, a leading space policy scholar, has studied the idea extensively. In 2019, she published a paper, “Strategic Implications of the Proliferation of Space Situational Awareness Technology and Information,” in which she argued that increased data sharing and transparency would help to promote space safety and sustainability. 

Two years later, she published “Legal Considerations and Future Options for Space Situational Awareness,” followed in 2022 by “Examining the Growth of the Global Space Situational Awareness Sector- A Network Analysis Approach.” 

Borowitz is no stranger to working with the federal government on space policy. She was a policy analyst for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate from 2016 to 2018. She will work with the Commerce Department part-time for two years. In the meantime, she will spend half of her week working on research and other Georgia Tech duties. 

“I’m excited to work with colleagues in the United States and around the world to help advance this effort and build a system that ensures space remains safe and sustainable now and in the future,” Borowitz said. 

Borowitz is not the only Georgia Tech faculty member working on the project. The project’s chief engineer is Sandra “Sandy” Magnus, Ph.D. MSE 1996, a professor of the practice with joint appointments in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Nunn School.