Members of the House Armed Services Committee in a report last week expressed support for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s use of commercial satellite data. They also asked NGA for details on its plans to integrate commercial data and services into “base programs of record.” “The committee notes that the domestic commercial satellite imagery industry continues to develop rapidly with new capabilities available from constellations of satellites dedicated to daily monitoring of the entire planet along with a growing domestic geospatial intelligence analytic industry,” said the report by the HASC strategic forces subcommittee. The congressional language reflects concerns by remote-sensing space companies that U.S. defense and intelligence agencies are not adopting commercial products and services at the pace and scale they hoped. Images collected by commercial Earth-watching satellite tracked the movement of troops after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and helped document the toll of the conflict. NGA was at the center of U.S. government efforts to tap commercial providers of satellite imagery to fill the demand. The conflict has been a prominent use case for commercial imaging satellites and their power to deliver crucial intelligence. But that has not translated into growing demand for imagery outside of the Ukraine crisis, noted David Gauthier, former director of NGA’s commercial and business operations. “My take on this is that the commercial market developed capability faster than the government could react to it … Investors put money in, and companies expect the government to purchase more imagery and other commercial data and services faster.”
