The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is targeting private industry's capabilities in imagery and big data analytics as part of a broader, new commercial strategy released Oct. 26.
Among the key goals are faster collection of real-time data and imagery "at the speed of the observable" – also known as persistence – and multi-source intelligence, among other priorities at the agency.
"Some customers are now willing to consider a trade of confidence level for speed, in order to support both operational and policy decision cycles," the strategy states. "NGA needs to meet these new customer desires as well as the traditional requirement for high-confidence analysis."
Cue the new commercial strategy, which addresses a wide range of NGA capabilities and missions, including its acquisition process as well as resilience and agility through remote-sensing, increased aggregation of open-source intelligence and a boost in analytic tools.
"The explosion and diversity of unclassified sources provides exploitation opportunities that can deliver greater background and context to enhance the focus of our national assets against hard problems and knowledge gaps," the strategy notes. "NGA requires a seamless integration of all GEOINT, regardless of source or classification, to enable anticipatory analysis and to create online, living knowledge that reduces the time between questions and answers…NGA's plan for harnessing unclassified GEOINT spans all domains — space, air, surface, subsurface, and cyber — and relies heavily upon commercial providers bringing their unique data, services, and rapid innovation together to strengthen the value of GEOINT."
Classification levels is an emerging area of importance as the variety of types of intelligence continues to grow, something the strategy repeatedly discusses as NGA looks at ways to coordinate classified and unclassified data in ways that can serve decision-making. It also serves as a "road map for preparing the community and workforce for new sources," and establishes "new, more agile acquisition models, and integrates the commercial sources to provide easy customer access."
The strategy includes customer consequence objectives, which target the services and products provided to NGA customer, and implementation imperatives, which underscores the value and importance of collaboration and innovation in geospatial intelligence.
The strategy also outlines a path toward the objectives, as well as a specific "end game" and key milestones.
"This commercial GEOINT strategy provides the roadmap for NGA to harness the unprecedented bow wave of persistence from commercial GEOINT providers and deliver the full spectrum of commercial imagery products and services at the speed of decision making," the strategy concludes. "By pursuing this strategy, in collaboration with our [partners], NGA will establish transparency and trust with our customers and providers. Our end state will be a collaborative coalition of intelligence and defense stakeholders who, collectively, are agilely responsive, adaptive to future change, and resilient to threats both in space and on the ground."
