NGA and NRO transition commercial imagery acquisition contract

The National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency transitioned the EnhancedView commercial imagery acquisition contract from NGA to NRO, NGA announced September 4.

As part of the transition, on August 29, 2018, NRO awarded DigitalGlobe, a Maxar Technologies company, the EnhancedView Follow-On (EVFO) contract to provide the U.S. Government with continued access to DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1, 2, and 3 satellite constellation, as well as access to the company’s image archive. The EVFO award includes a one-year base contract, with one option year, valued at $300 million annually.

NRO Director Betty Sapp and NGA Director Robert Cardillo said the commercial imagery produced under EnhancedView will continue to contribute to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities, as well as to federal civil agencies, humanitarian organizations and international partners.

“Commercial imagery is an increasingly important part of satisfying both existing and emerging security and intelligence challenges,” said Sapp. “The award of the EVFO is an important first step in the NRO’s strategy of embracing commercial imagery as a key element of our current overhead architecture and a critical and integral element of our future overhead architecture.”

Cardillo spoke to the larger significance of this transition.

“For decades, the partnership between NGA and NRO has directly strengthened our nation. For the past eight years, DigitalGlobe – via EnhancedView – has steadily grown its contributions to NGA’s GEOINT service,” said Cardillo. “Further, as the GEOINT Functional Manager, I especially value how this transition enables our broader enterprise to leverage data analytics and the broad spectrum of emerging commercial GEOINT services.”

Source: NGA