The Scout Service.

There is no unified scout service in Known Space. Each large nation and alliance on Earth and the well established independent colonies has their own, and private companies and freelancers operate as well. With colonies springing up, amalgamating, splitting and fizzling out all over the place much of the work of the national scout services is surveying, visiting known worlds and seeing what is going on, and as couriers maintaining contact with colonies set up by their home nation. Exploration still goes on, with scout companies sending ships hither and yon gathering data and selling it to the highest bidder, all hoping to strike it rich by finding a new Earth and selling it's location and resource data to any nation willing to pay for getting a head start on its exploitation and colonisation.