The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is expanding the use of commercial satellite imagery and analytics through a new acquisition program called Luno.
“We’re trying to amplify that market signal,” Devin Brande, director of the NGA’s commercial operations group, said on February 22.
The Luno program aims to improve NGA’s global monitoring capabilities by using commercial satellite imagery and data analysis. In January, the agency issued a request for proposals for Luno Part A. Proposals are due at the end of March.
Brande said at a conference on commercial space transportation organized by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation that contracts are expected to be awarded this year.
At the conference, Brande and other government officials discussed the perceived gap between the government’s stated long-term demand for specific technologies and actual investment. According to him, NGA aims to invest its money when it comes to utilizing commercial capabilities and services
Expansion of the previous program
Luno expands on a previous program called Economic Indicator Monitoring (EIM), which the NGA launched in 2021 with a budget of $29 million over five years.
“We’ve gone up 10-fold because of our success with our industry partners,” Brande said.
He added that the Luno program intends to demonstrate a tangible commitment to commercial Earth observation services.
With a $290 million indicative cap, Luno will seek commercial monitoring services to track economic activity around the world by observing factors such as shipping, construction, energy infrastructure, and agricultural production; environmental monitoring of things like natural disasters, climate patterns, and resource extraction; and surveillance of foreign military capabilities by detecting equipment, troop movements, base construction, and other indicators of national security.
According to industry sources, due to its projected size, Luno is attracting widespread attention in the geospatial information sector and a large number of applications.
According to these sources, the NGA has told vendors that the agency envisions using the Luno program to expand or support intelligence priorities through a different business model. Instead of hiring contractors to analyze classified data at top-secret facilities, the NGA is purchasing analysis as a service, an approach many in the industry argue is more efficient.