NRO Announces Commercial RF Study Contract Awards

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has awarded six study contracts for commercial RF (radio frequency) remote sensing. Companies receiving awards under NRO’s Strategic Commercial Enhancement’s (SCE) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Framework include Aurora Insight, HawkEye 360, Kleos Space, PredaSAR, Spire Global, and Umbra Lab.

“As evidenced by the quality and quantity of commercial data flowing to our partners and allies, commercial remote sensing is a mainstay not only for security and intelligence applications but also for helping to manage humanitarian crises.”

Pete Muend, director of NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office.

“Since the 2019 award of an integration study contract for commercial RF, we’ve seen increasing demand for this data source from across the user community,” said Dr. Chris Scolese, director of the NRO. “Today’s awards are another great example of NRO’s efforts to innovate on all fronts, as we continue to work with our partners in government and the commercial sector to find new ways to build capability, agility, capacity, speed, and resilience into everything we do.”

This new BAA focus area will help the NRO better understand the capabilities of multiple commercial RF providers to address new intelligence challenges. This is the second focus area awarded under the NRO’s new SCE BAA framework, designed to streamline the assessment and operationalization of emerging commercial capabilities. The SCE BAA Framework and first focus area for commercial radar were released in October 2021, followed by awards in January 2022 to five commercial radar providers. Similar to the commercial radar focus area, the RF focus area was open to both U.S. and foreign-owned U.S. commercial RF providers.

Commercial RF Data is a Valuable Source for SSA

The unclassified, shareable nature of commercial remote sensing data, including RF, makes it a valuable source for situational awareness and intelligence sharing among U.S. allies and partners.

“As evidenced by the quality and quantity of commercial data flowing to our partners and allies, commercial remote sensing is a mainstay not only for security and intelligence applications but also for helping to manage humanitarian crises,” said Pete Muend, director of NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office. “Since the early days of Ukraine crisis, NRO’s commercial data providers have been collecting electro-optical and radar imagery as well as commercial RF data over the region.”

The BAA and its first two focus areas build on the success of NRO’s earlier studies and operational contracts, and create additional opportunities to expand NRO’s commitment to the rapid acquisition and integration of commercial space-based data.

“Leveraging nearly four years of on-orbit operational experience, HawkEye 360 appreciates the opportunity to continue its work with the NRO to integrate commercial RF innovations into its evolving architecture,” said Alex Fox, Chief Growth Officer for HawkEye 360. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with the NRO to deliver commercial RF capabilities and support the agency’s mission to advance U.S. national security and the security of our allies.”

HawkEye 360 will initially model and simulate current and future RF-sensing capabilities, engage in live end-to-end demonstrations, conduct accuracy and quality assessments, and demonstrate overhead delivery of RF data to government fixed, transportable, and mobile ground stations around the world. The outcome is to deliver trusted and resilient results that provide high mission impact to the NRO and its mission partners.

Kleos will provide insights into how to optimize evolving commercial RF geolocation capability to enhance and augment existing capabilities in a persistent, resilient, cost-effective manner that is also easily shareable across the U.S. Government, and with international partners and allies.

“This study project represents a significant opportunity for Kleos to help the NRO assess the operational and decision-making usefulness of commercial RF GEOINT and understanding how our unique data set can be leveraged and fused with NRO’s operational capabilities through a combination of modeling and simulation, and analysis of collected data from our growing constellation of satellite clusters,” said Kleos’ Chief Revenue Officer, Eric von Eckartsberg.

(Source: NRO, HawkEye 360 and Kleos news releases. Images provided by Kleos and NRO)