SAN FRANCISCO – The National Reconnaissance Office has awarded contracts to Capella Space, Iceye U.S. and Umbra to expand the U.S. government’s use of commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
The contracts, awarded under NRO’s Commercial Radar Capabilities program, “represent a significant step in the NRO’s strategy to build a more resilient and responsive overhead architecture,” according to the NRO’s Aug. 5 news release. “By integrating commercial SAR capabilities with national systems, the NRO increases its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capacity and flexibility, ensuring timely and persistent global coverage. This approach allows the NRO to leverage the rapid innovation occurring in the commercial space sector to augment its cutting-edge space-based intelligence systems.”
The NRO awarded contracts in 2022 to radar imagery providers Airbus U.S., Capella Space, Iceye U.S., PredaSAR and Umbra to study the commercial data sources and ways to employ them alongside government sensors. Through modeling, simulation and on-orbit demonstrations, the NRO evaluated the commercial constellations, leading to the latest awards.
The new contracts, managed by the NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office, will provide “all-weather, day and night imaging to support a wide range of national security and humanitarian missions,” according to the NRO news release. “This strategy is informed by lessons learned from the NRO’s successful Electro-Optical Commercial Layer and other commercial remote sensing programs, further promoting the rapid integration of the most innovative commercial data source.”
“Commercial remote sensing is increasingly part of how the Intelligence Community augments some of its hardest collection challenges,” Iceye U.S. CEO Ann Stevens said in a statement. “Earning a place on the RCA program reflects the trust the NRO places in our technology and our team. We focused on delivering the reliability and responsiveness this mission requires, and on continuing to advance what commercial radar can contribute to national security.”
Iceye said the contract “reflects growing readiness to leverage commercial remote sensing alongside national systems — a step in maturing commercial radar for the U.S. government,” in an Aug. 5 news release. “Because Iceye U.S. SAR data is unclassified, collections can be shared across the defense, intelligence, civil, and allied and coalition partner community under existing sharing agreements, maximizing collaboration when it is needed most.”
Under a related program, Strategic Commercial Enhancements Commercial Solutions Opening,the NRO announced contract awards in May to EarthDaily, Iceye and Pixxel to expand the agency’s “access to cutting-edge multi-phenomenology remote sensing capabilities, including” electro-optical, hyperspectral imaging and radio frequency to enhance NRO’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission.