National Reconnaissance Office director Bruce Carlson said most consumers of intel today want one thing: “a map or a picture with a dot” indicating where someone is to be killed or rescued, or where cargo is to be dropped. He’s orienting his vast processing resources to provide that and to seek other ways of doing it as well. Very soon, he said, signals intelligence will be good enough to support precision targeting. Users today want actionable intel faster and more accurately, and “we can do that,” Carlson asserted.
The Space Force relies entirely on data—but it lacks the systems and tools to analyze and share that data properly even within the service, let alone with international partners, officials said May 1.