Battle For NRO Takes Shape As Space, Air Forces Grapple With Acquisition

Battle For NRO Takes Shape As Space, Air Forces Grapple With Acquisition
Battle For NRO Takes Shape As Space, Air Forces Grapple With Acquisition

DoD officials are extremely aware, almost to the point of paranoia, that even discussing the issue of NRO potentially being subsumed by the Space Force is playing with fire.

Intel Community’s Secrecy Culture Frustrates DoD Sat Safety Effort

Intel Community’s Secrecy Culture Frustrates DoD Sat Safety Effort
Intel Community’s Secrecy Culture Frustrates DoD Sat Safety Effort

“People at the NRO and others hiding in unmarked cubicles in other parts of northern Virginia started breathing into bags like never before,” said one DoD source about the 2018 SSA transparency policy.

Industry Worries Friction Twixt NRO-NGA On Commercial Imagery

Industry Worries Friction Twixt NRO-NGA On Commercial Imagery
Industry Worries Friction Twixt NRO-NGA On Commercial Imagery

NGA and NRO “have significantly overlapping Venn diagrams,” one industry source said, and they are still trying to “sort that through.” He added, “It’s not a nice clean line.”

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Ground Stations Can Boost Mix Of Small & Exquisite Sats: Raytheon

Ground Stations Can Boost Mix Of Small & Exquisite Sats: Raytheon
Ground Stations Can Boost Mix Of Small & Exquisite Sats: Raytheon

Modern space strategy, with its focus on resilience, requires “understanding the capabilities of each satellite and managing them as a constellation:” Jane Chappell, vice president of Raytheon’s Global Intelligence Solutions (GIS) mission area. Advertisement

Huge Intel Leadership Shifts: New Directors For NRO, NGA

Huge Intel Leadership Shifts: New Directors For NRO, NGA
Huge Intel Leadership Shifts: New Directors For NRO, NGA

NGA HQ: The low grinding noise you could barely hear yesterday was the sound of the tectonic plates of American intelligence shifting as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Agency got new directors. The nugget of news is that Vice Adm. Bob Sharp replaces Robert Cardillo as NGA director and President Trump…

Air Force Teams With NRO For Secret SSA Bird

Air Force Teams With NRO For Secret SSA Bird
Air Force Teams With NRO For Secret SSA Bird

After years of missed deadlines, cost overruns and underperformance the Air Force has split the requirements for the troubled Joint Mission System program’s Increment 3, dividing them between the Coalition Space Operations Center and the National Space Defense Center. In a separate but apparently related action, the Air Force has also partnered with the nation’s spy satellite builder to create a new Space Situational Awareness satellite.

Space Acquisition Fixes Will ‘Blow Your Socks Off;’ More On KC-46: SecAF Wilson

Space Acquisition Fixes Will ‘Blow Your Socks Off;’ More On KC-46: SecAF Wilson
Space Acquisition Fixes Will ‘Blow Your Socks Off;’ More On KC-46: SecAF Wilson

There will be organizational alterations, changes to “the way we are doing business” and, perhaps most importantly, Wilson said there will be “cultural change.” They will also try to prioritize what “our go-fast projects are.”

Major NRO Spy Program Behind Schedule: DNRO Sapp

Major NRO Spy Program Behind Schedule: DNRO Sapp
Major NRO Spy Program Behind Schedule: DNRO Sapp

WASHINGTON: America’s spy satellite maker and operator, the National Reconnaissance Office, has one major satellite program at risk of not meeting its cost and schedule requirements, its director Betty Sapp says. In a rare moment of transparency, Sapp answered my question about the status of the agency’s programs at the Intelligence and National Security Summit…

NRO Tries New Automatic Systems That Analyze Data & Move Satellites

NRO Tries New Automatic Systems That Analyze Data & Move Satellites
NRO Tries New Automatic Systems That Analyze Data & Move Satellites

UPDATED: NRO Confirms SpaceX Launch Buy  GEOINT: The Pentagon’s Third Offset strategy puts much faith in artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine communications. The National Reconnaissance Office is already working on making those a reality, deploying prototypes of its new next-generation ground systems, Director Betty Sapp said here this morning. “We anticipate fielding a ground system able to direct…

SecDef: JICSPOC Means ‘One Room, One Floor’ For Intel & Military

SecDef: JICSPOC Means ‘One Room, One Floor’ For Intel & Military
SecDef: JICSPOC Means ‘One Room, One Floor’ For Intel & Military

SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE: Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who spent five years pushing the National Reconnaissance Office and the military to work more closely together, saw the effects today during a tour of the JICSPOC, the experimental effort to improve battle management of America’s satellites. Inside the heavily guarded secure facility where most of America’s satellites are flown and…

Two Scenarios Tested: STRATCOM’s Haney On JICSPOC Lessons

Two Scenarios Tested: STRATCOM’s Haney On JICSPOC Lessons
Two Scenarios Tested: STRATCOM’s Haney On JICSPOC Lessons

WASHINGTON: The new Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSPOC) has completed two of its nine scenarios and is helping the US military and its Intelligence Community learn how to monitor and fight using space, the head of Strategic Command, Adm Cecil Haney, said today. “While we still have a ways to go — I repeat, a…

DepSecDef Work On The Future Of DoD-IC Space Cooperation

DepSecDef Work On The Future Of DoD-IC Space Cooperation
DepSecDef Work On The Future Of DoD-IC Space Cooperation

PENTAGON: It poses one of the thorniest problems for the United States national security establishment: how to get the nation’s spy agencies, especially the secretive National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the military to work together when someone attacks US spy and military satellites. To offer some clarity on the way ahead for this relationship, Deputy Defense Secretary…