The National Reconnaissance Office will keep inviting businesses to submit bids for remote sensing capabilities.

In the past, the agency responsible for designing, building, and maintaining U.S. spy satellites has utilized Broad Area Announcements to solicit bids, including contract award and submission dates.

The next year, the NRO satellite would request bids using a contractual mechanism called Commercial Solutions Opportunity (CSO). Through CSO, the NRO will ask companies for suggestions on remote sensing technologies, such as radar, electro-optical, and hyperspectral, that it has researched through BAAs. At the MilSat Symposium held here on October 24, Pete Muend, head of the NRO's commercial space branch, said the agency is also looking for new capabilities, such as space-based LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging).

Companies who have launched spacecraft into orbit or have satellites in orbit are particularly asked to apply by the CSO. Muend claims that the CSO will offer "rolling admissions." Companies can submit once they meet those requirements.

Meanwhile, the NRO continues to work with other government agencies to establish a program of record for the acquisition of commercial synthetic aperture radar under a program called Commercial Radar Layer.

In the upcoming months, the executive branch will probably formalize such regulations, Muend said. Congress ultimately gets a vote as well.

Companies who wish to work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must get remote sensing authorization from the NRO. Additional limitations focus on U.S. ownership.

According to Muend, they want American companies to succeed in this area because they understand how global it is. He wants to be able to reverse the trend and continue buying data from American companies in ten years. In a broader sense, I have no doubt that the success of commercial space intelligence is directly tied to U.S. national security goals.