Tony Frazier: Maxar Moves to Expand Government Work Through Legacy Business Units

Tony Frazier, executive vice president for global field operations at Maxar Technologies and a 2019 Wash100 award winner, told SpaceNews in an interview published Wednesday about the company’s efforts to build up the U.S. government business with the integration of legacy operations of SSL, Radiant Solutions and DigitalGlobe.

Frazier cited the collaboration of Maxar’s legacy SSL business with NASA in a push to grow the government business.

“The business also aspired to grow in national security space. … If we have a relationship through our imagery business with a national security agency, we are able to socialize the end-to-end solution,” he said of SSL.

Maxar was one of the three companies selected by the National Reconnaissance Office in June to conduct studies to evaluate the industry’s capacity to help the U.S. government address satellite imagery requirements by 2023. Frazier noted that the contract reflects NRO’s “effort to understand what’s possible with commercial providers.”

When asked about government geostationary communications satellites, he said “there are a number of initiatives that are in early stages of procurement, where we’re socializing the capabilities of the platform.”

Frazier said the company is focusing on efforts to build new assets designed to support critical intelligence missions. He also shared his insights on the importance of the ground infrastructure, talent recruitment challenges facing the industry and autonomous vehicle mapping.