US Military Opens Restricted Space Tracking Data to SpaceX, Prompting Conflict Concerns

The US military has given SpaceX access to restricted space tracking data, renewing questions about whether the Trump administration is moving to hand control of orbital traffic management to a controversial political donor, Elon Musk. Industry observers say the arrangement also raises national security concerns.

The Space Force and SpaceX signed a new contract covering the access. For the first time, a commercial company has been given enhanced access to the US Space Command's most detailed and secure version of its High Accuracy Catalog of objects in orbit. The data includes Vector Covariance Messages, built from readings gathered by military sensors, telescopes and ground radars that follow satellites and other objects in lower orbit down to about 10cm (3.93in) in size.

The move follows cuts to the federal Traffic Coordination System for Space, known as Traccs. Musk's Doge fired many of the program's staff in 2025, and the administration has twice tried to financially gut it. Many in the industry viewed those steps as an attempt to privatize space traffic control. The first Trump administration created Traccs to take commercial traffic coordination over from the defense department, but the program has never been fully funded or staffed. It manages thousands of satellites, pieces of debris and spacecraft, and helps head off as many as 50,000 near-collisions, known as conjunctions, each day.

Cole Donovan, a former Traccs employee now with the Stand Up for Science non-profit, said the commercial US space market is expected to approach $2tn in value over the next decade. He argued that the data access looks like another step toward monopoly control. "It's like giving a trucking company control of all the traffic lights, which they can switch to red whenever it's their competition's turn to go," he said.

SpaceX and the Space Force did not respond to the Guardian's requests for comment. A Space Force spokesperson told Breaking Defense that the service is engaging with several companies to exchange commercial data sources for access to sections of the controlled, unclassified, high accuracy catalogue where it benefits the US government.

The data is useful to Starlink, which operates about 11,000 satellites and could have as many as 20,000 in the coming years. The company tracks objects with its own Stargaze system, made up of cameras and radars on its satellites, but Stargaze sees only objects down to about half a meter and is less accurate than the military system. A SpaceX employee said at an industry conference that the military radar data is an extremely valuable supplement. In return, the government receives access to Stargaze cameras and sensors, which Donovan said is helpful because more observations are better.

The information is designated controlled unclassified information and has been closely held, observers say, because it could reveal the limits of defense capabilities and allow reverse engineering of the sensors used to monitor other nations' satellites.

Funding for Traccs remains contested. The administration tried to largely defund the $65m program in fiscal year 2026, but Congress restored the money. It again proposed cutting the budget to nearly zero for fiscal year 2027, and the House again reinserted the funding. Industry employees have told the Guardian that support for Traccs is broad because it would level the playing field.

A former Noaa official who spoke anonymously said SpaceX has largely been "remarkably responsive to space safety concerns" and did not fault Starlink for filling a gap the government left open. The official said the greater failure lies with the government for not establishing a coherent space governance framework.

Craig Holman of the accountability group Public Citizen said the access is another case of the administration rewarding a donor. "Elon Musk has bought his way into the favor of President Trump and with it, unlimited riches and lucrative government contracts in the space industry," he said.