HawkEye 360 Inc. of Herndon, VA announced on September 27 it has been awarded a contract by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to help the agency discover, characterize and map activities which emit energy in the RF bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The $10 million, base year plus four option years contract will support users throughout the NGA enterprise, including the Combatant Commands and other designated mission partners. HawkEye 360 will provide NGA the means to develop global datasets, enabling users to discover and monitor a broad range of RF activity across large geographic areas.
“We’re pleased to be moving from the pilot into an NGA long-term operational contract, which showcases the value of unclassified, shareable commercial RF insights,” said HawkEye 360 CEO John Serafini. “NGA is a leader within the United States government in leveraging the growing strengths of the commercial GEOINT sector to fulfill their mission to support policymakers and war fighters. HawkEye 360 is grateful for the opportunity to come alongside NGA and deliver results to customers with some of the most pressing demands.”
HawkEye 360’s data will support a variety of analytics missions for NGA, including military activity and the trafficking of military, nefarious, non-state and transnational criminal (or illicit) activity. The company’s growing constellation of satellites will provide insight into developing events in a timely manner, and the company will work collaboratively with NGA on an ongoing basis to effectively meet the agency’s mission needs.
“This program is an excellent example of agile acquisition rapidly delivering high-impact GEOINT to the warfighter,” said Alex Fox, EVP for business development, sales, and marketing. “NGA leveraged a National Reconnaissance Office commercial integration study contract with HawkEye 360 in September 2020 to execute a test and evaluation contract with the only RF provider capable of meeting the requirements. NGA issued a competitive RFP in March 2021 and awarded the contract in July 2021 — a fantastic example of quickly bringing a new capability to the GEOINT community. We are excited to continue working with NGA to address current mission requirements and expand the RF GEOINT tradecraft to address an even larger set of mission requirements, much like NGA has done with their pioneering use of commercial imagery.”
HawkEye 360 operates a constellation of nine RF-monitoring satellites. Twenty-one additional satellites are fully funded and scheduled for launch in 2021 and 2022. Once complete, this baseline constellation of 30 satellites will provide collection revisits as frequent as every 20 minutes.
Following the establishment of the baseline constellation, HawkEye 360 plans to launch a second-generation constellation of 30 additional satellites by 2025 to satisfy projected capacity and operational requirements.
Source: HawkEye 360
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