The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has awarded $7.3 billion worth of contracts to companies DigitalGlobe and GeoEye for commercial satellite imagery products over the next 10 years. DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., received a $3.5 billion award, while GeoEye, headquartered in Dulles, Va., won a $3.8 billion contract under the agency’s new EnhancedView program, according to NGA’s release. NGA said these contracts will “help meet the increasing geospatial intelligence needs” of the Defense Department and intelligence community via the next series of US commercial imagery satellites. In the case of DigitalGlobe, this means the new WorldView-3 satellite scheduled for launch by the end of 2014. For GeoEye, it is the new GeoEye-2 spacecraft with sub-half-meter imagery resolution due on orbit in late 2012. EnhancedView is the successor to NGA’s NextView initiative under which these companies provided CSI products to DOD and the IC. (See also DigitalGlobe release)
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.