The status change should give the Space Force more weight in debate about how to share acquisition authority for commercial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
While there is no formal agreement, NRO and the Space Force have reached an informal accord to each use commercial imagery the other has acquired, and are in discussions about a potential DoD-IC "marketplace" to ease sharing.
"[T]he IC Commercial Space Council is discussing commercial protection right now. We had a meeting on Tuesday, and it came up," said NGA's David Gauthier, who chairs the council.
"Our goal is to ultimately develop a comprehensive set of needs and gap analysis with traceable documentation of the joint warfighter requirements for space," said Lt. Gen. Chance Saltzman, before investing in solutions.
"These restrictions would severely hurt commercial companies' ability to operate high resolution constellations and is counter to the efforts of the past two years to make NOAA regs streamlined and enable US companies to compete internationally," one industry rep said.