EXCLUSIVE: NRO, Space Force in ‘final stages’ of commercial ISR arrangement

ULA CEO Tory Bruno (left), then Space Force Space Systems Command head Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein (center) and NRO Director Chris Scolese (right) at an Aug. 28, 2023 press conference prior to the launch of SILENTBARKER. (Screengrab: NRO Twitter feed)

WASHINGTON — After more than two years of negotiations, the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office are on the brink of signing a baseline agreement on how they will share acquisition authority for, and access to, imagery from commercial remote sensing satellites.

Col. Richard Kniseley, head of Space System Command’s Commercial Space Office (COMSO), told Breaking Defense that he signed an unclassified version of the new agreement on March 20.

“In a nutshell, it allows us, COMSO, to pass them money, and for them to pass us money. So, if we have an entity on contract and they want to do a task order, or even put some money on the Global Data Marketplace, that’s how they’re going to be able to do that,” he explained. “And then, now I have the ability to work with [NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office] and [Director] Pete Muend and utilize some of the contracts that he has.”

An NRO spokesperson on March 26 confirmed in an email that an agreement was pending  — stressing that commercial satellite imagery and data have become “increasingly important” to the NRO’s capabilities.

“To further enhance sharing of commercial imagery with the Space Force, there is a pending Interagency Agreement between NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office and U.S. Space Force’s Commercial Space Office that will help maximize the utility and availability of commercial remote sensing products across the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community. The Interagency Agreement is currently in the final stages of coordination and signature,” the spokesperson said.

Specifically, the two sides plan to sign a Treasury Department Bureau of the Fiscal Service Form 7600A [PDF], which outlines the general terms and conditions for allowing one agency to buy products and services from another, Kniseley said.

This has allowed NRO and the Space Force to abandon trying to hash out a formal memorandum or agreement (MOA), he explained, and instead creates a generalized pathway for the two sides commercial offices to make case-by-case payments for obtaining each other’s imagery and analytical products.

As Breaking Defense first reported, COMSO and the NRO Commercial Systems Program Office reached an informal accord in 2023 that each side would “leverage” each other’s commercial imagery “whenever possible.” However, that agreement didn’t detail exactly when those evers were.

“Instead of having a five-page MOA, this thing is like, no kidding, a two-page, very streamlined document. So, I was very happy it came into our lives,” Kniseley said.

Further, he added, COMSO now in the early stages of working on a similar agreement with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) with regard to sharing of imagery analysis and downstream products such as maps.

When asked about the status of those discussions, an NGA spokesperson told Breaking Defense only that: “NRO purchases commercial pixels and would have lead on any agreement such as this. NGA’s role is in distributing the data.”

The pending financial accords are expected to resolve the immediate issue of how the Intelligence Community’s space agencies and the Space Force can fairly share each other’s commercial acquisitions, or even jointly acquire commercial data and products.

IC, Space Force Boundaries Remain Fuzzy

But they do not answer the larger question of where to set the overarching boundaries between the newest military service and the Intelligence Community about who does what, when, with regard to gathering intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) from space.

NRO has maintained acquisition authority for commercial remote sensing imagery since 2018, taking over from NGA. NGA remains legally in charge of acquiring analytical services and products from commercial space providers, as well as for disseminating ISR to users across the federal government from POTUS to military commanders in the field to US civil agencies charged with disaster response, as well as allies.

The Space Force has tried to ease the tensions by arguing that it is interested only in directly obtaining what it originally called tactical ISR — and in 2023 re-dubbed tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking or TacSRT — affecting immediate battlefield needs.

And indeed, NRO and the Space Force seem to have reached at least a public modus vivendi despite what sources have previously described as a behind-the-scenes tug of war about their respective roles and responsibilities for ISR acquisition that has simmered almost since the service was created in 2019.

For example, senior Space Force leaders from Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman on down the chain have been careful to say that the service’s TacSRT pilot project, launched in 2023 with a “marketplace” for vendors, does not involve buying raw imagery so as to avoid stepping on NRO’s toes.

The Space Force and NRO also are working together to fund and operate the SILENTBARKER program to build and deploy a new generation of satellites designed to keep an eye on adversary satellites in space.

“I have never seen so much collaboration on the Title 10 [military authorities], Title 50 [including intelligence authorities] side as I do right now. I thought SILENTBARKER was kind of a one-off. And, you know, we do stuff together and launch. But there there’s a lot more stuff going on, and it’s great,” Kniseley said.

That relationship can only be expected to improve if and when Troy Meink, NRO’s deputy director, is confirmed by the Senate to be the new Air Force secretary.

More recently, the hotter battle for authority has pitted the Space Force against the NGA over the latter’s satellite tasking role as well as respective authorities to acquire commercial ISR products.

The Biden administration spent a good deal of time and White House energy in the second half of last year on the Space Force-NGA feud, but was unable to formalize a solution before the transition in January to the new Trump administration.

Kniseley acknowledged that the three agencies are still trying to hash out the the larger questions related to the Space Force’s plans for TacSRT.

“There’s still a three-party MOA going [around] with regards to TacSRT,” he said.

In testimony Thursday to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional advisory body, Saltzman suggested that a Space Force “roles and missions discussion,” including “between military space and IC space,” will be required in the not too distance future.

“We stood up an organization for military space, now we need to clearly define what those roles and responsibilities are, or even establish a process by which we will evaluate new missions as they’re developed to make sure we give them to the right organization.”