Amazon.com's (AMZN) Kuiper satellite unit and Elon Musk's SpaceX, along with about 450 companies, urged the Senate committee overseeing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration not to terminate the Traffic Coordination System for Space in a joint letter on Monday.
The White House's 2026 budget proposal seeks only $10 million for NOAA's Office of Space Commerce, representing an 84% cut from the office's 2025 funding, which will lead to the dissolution of the civilian system that helps prevent satellite collisions and alerts operators of potential crashes, according to Reuters.
The letter said that the "US commercial and government satellite operators would face greater risks - putting critical missions in harm's way, raising the cost of doing business, and potentially driving US industry to relocate overseas."
The Trump administration said in a budget document in June that it wants to terminate the system as private companies "have the capability and the business model" to do space traffic coordination on their own.