An image of Qinhuangdao Port (coal terminal), Qinhuangdao, Hebei, China, February 20, 2023, taken by Planet’s SkySat constellation. (Image credit: Planet)
WASHINGTON — The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) has tapped 10 commercial space and data crunching companies to provide unclassified computer vision and artificial intelligence-based analytic services under a contract vehicle worth up to $290 million over five years.
Under the Luno A indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) award, each of the vendors will compete for tasking orders from NGA designed to help agency personnel improve its intel products — which then are disseminated to users in the national security community from the president to Pentagon leaders to military commanders in the field.
“Luno A provides national security community users with access to the commercial data and analytic services that add new context to analytic assessments by characterizing things such as worldwide economic, environmental and military activities. Deliverables will be driven by validated user requirements, mission-specific and responsive to the community’s needs,” NGA said in a Sept. 13 press release.
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Information gathered primarily from commercial remote sensing satellites will include, for example, data about economic development around the world and environmental crises as well as information about foreign military capabilities.
The unclassified information gathered under Luno A will be integrated with that from other NGA sources, including classified sources, as best seen fit by the analysts working with it, an agency spokesperson told Breaking Defense in January when it made a request for industry proposals. Likewise, the spokesperson said intel “will be shared with partners, allies, and customers through a variety of mechanisms, depending on the specific mission need being met.”
The 10 chosen companies are:
- Airbus U.S. Space & Defense, Inc.
- Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation
- BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc.
- BlueHalo, LLC
- CACI, Inc. Federal
- Electromagnetic Systems, Inc.
- Maxar Intelligence, Inc.
- NV5 Geospatial, Inc.
- Royce Geospatial Consultants, Inc.
- Ursa Space Systems, Inc.
An NGA spokesperson told Breaking Defense in a Sept. 13 email that the agency has yet to issue any individual task orders under Luno A.
