The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has awarded its first three contracts under a new procurement program aimed at expanding access to commercial satellite intelligence capabilities, Deputy Director Maj. Gen. Christopher Povak said on Thursday.
Speaking at the National Security Space Association’s Defense and Intelligence Space Conference, Povak said the contracts were issued through the agency’s Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO), a framework launched last July that allows companies to submit unsolicited proposals over a rolling five-year period.
The initial awards went to three firms offering distinct space-based sensing capabilities. Australian start-up HEO will provide close-range imagery of satellites using sensors hosted on multiple spacecraft. British start-up SatVu will supply thermal imagery from its HotSpot satellites equipped with medium-wave infrared cameras. U.S.-based Sierra Nevada Corporation will deliver radio-frequency geolocation data.
The CSO program is designed to broaden the NRO’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) toolkit beyond traditional imaging satellites. It covers a range of sensing methods, including electro-optical, hyperspectral, thermal and radio-frequency technologies.
In a statement, the agency said it expects to issue additional awards as funding allows. “Budget permitting,” the NRO said it “anticipates issuing additional awards later this year to expand these multi-phenomenology capabilities.”
Povak urged other commercial providers to participate, emphasizing that the contracting window will remain open for several years.
“We look forward to working with all three of those, but for the rest of the commercial ISR providers that are out there or listening in, this offering window is open for an extended period of time, for the next four plus years,” he said.
“We’ll have ways of putting new demand signal out, and we’ll always have an open way of receiving proposals from from you. So we look forward to your ideas,” Povak added.
The initiative reflects a broader push by U.S. defense and intelligence agencies to integrate commercial space capabilities more rapidly as private companies deploy increasingly sophisticated sensors in orbit.
