"We're talking to a lot of different organizations in the government Space Force, the Army, the Air Force many that are looking at how you could leverage commercial technologies and tactical ISR," BlackSky CEO Brian O'Toole told Breaking Defense.
Payam Banazadeh, CEO of Capella Space, told Breaking Defense that the Ukraine war has been a "critical place for the industry to show itself," but NRO says it isn't accelerating the SAR acquisition process.
Pete Muend, director of the NRO Commercial Systems Program Office, told the USGIF GEOINT 2022 conference that RF tracking for Ukraine has been "great benefit," and spy agency wants to expand the capability.
Later in the contracting process, NRO potentially will "have the wherewithal to purchase ad hoc imagery, data products and the like," said Pete Muend, director of the spy agency's Commercial Systems Program Office.
Planet is hopeful that NRO not only will be interested in its current 50cm resolution SkySat constellation, but also its newest constellation, called Pelican, which will be operational in 2023, said co-founder Robbie Shingler.