Charles Lyons-Burt
The National Reconnaissance Office has selected three space technology companies for a 10-year, multibillion-dollar contracting program to acquire commercial imagery and remote sensing data products for the defense and intelligence communities.
BlackSky, Maxar and Planet have received the Electro-Optical Commercial Layer awards from the NRO in order to initiate enhanced transparency, situational awareness and humanitarian aid, the Chantilly, Virginia-based agency said Wednesday.
Christopher Scolese, director of the NRO, said the awards are in line with the organization’s tendency to acquire as many assets in a given field as possible and then carefully execute necessary projects based on those newly acquired assets.
“The diversity offered by our expanding architecture comprised of both commercial and NRO systems increases our resilience and enables an integrated approach to the threats facing our nation,” Scolese, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient, continued.
The EOCL program’s structure makes room for user-focused license agreements and contract flexibility to allow for results and resources to be shared throughout the network of customers.
The endeavor is aimed to strengthen the U.S. commercial remote sensing industry as well as meet the needs of an estimated half-million public sector NRO users. It is effective immediately and comes with multiple-one year option periods in addition to its five-year starting period.
