Defense Information and Electronics Report October 12, 2001
GOVERNMENT UNLIKELY TO BAN COMMERCIAL SPACE IMAGERY SALES
Intelligence analysts and industry insiders say the U.S. government is unlikely to use its authority to block commercial sales of high-resolution satellite imagery during the war on terrorism -- despite the fact that the quality of commercial satellite pictures has improved dramatically in recent years and is now approaching the quality of government reconnaissance satellites.
Officials at the Defense and State Departments refused to comment about the possibility of imposing so-called shutter control, but security experts familiar with the issue say it is unlikely that shutter control will be imposed. The time to do so would have been during the sensitive preparatory stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, before the bombs started dropping, these experts point out.
The State Dept. and DOD are charged with jointly determining when to impose shutter control. In the event of its imposition, the Commerce Department would be responsible for requiring licensed companies to limit the collection of images to whatever degree deemed necessary by DOD and the State Dept. The Commerce Department would also be responsible for monitoring the compliance of companies.
It appears less likely at this moment than I would've thought a month ago, said John Pike, founder of the defense think tank GlobalSecurity.org. Pike told Defense Information and Electronics Report this week that when shutter control authority was first established in 1994, it was generally thought that its imposition would be reflexive, almost automatic during times of international conflict or national security sensitivity.
The opposite, however, has turned out to be true. In the seven years the authority has existed, shutter control has not once been imposed, according to the Commerce Department. This time period has included numerous military campaigns, including Operation Allied Force.
The reason shutter control was never invoked is that people have a much better appreciation of the limitations of the technology, Pike said. As the commercial satellite imagery industry has established itself in the last few years, it has become apparent that these limitations have less to do with the satellites' ability to take good pictures, than with the logistics of delivering them to the customer. The inability of imaging companies to deliver images quickly and cheaply enough to make them a feasible means for intelligence collection has made shutter control unnecessary, intelligence experts say.
The development of numerous environmental, agricultural, and planning applications for satellite imagery more than a decade ago spurred U.S. interest in becoming a leader in the emerging market for space imagery technology.
In the United States, the commercialization of satellite imaging began with the passage of the Land Remote Sensing Act of 1992. That act authorized the commerce secretary to license private sector parties to operate private remote sensing space systems. Almost immediately, new companies were formed and began to develop plans for launching their own imaging satellites.
Then, in 1994, national security concerns over the commercialization of remote space sensing -- previously the exclusive province of the intelligence community's National Reconnaissance Office -- led to a presidential directive that established the right of the government to impose shutter control.
As described in Presidential Decision Directive No. 23, shutter control gives the Commerce Department the right to limit data collection and/or distribution by commercial satellites when DOD and the State Department deem that national security or international obligations and/or foreign policies may be compromised.
The National Reconnaissance Office, which designs, builds and operates the satellites that provide image intelligence to the Defense Department and members of the intelligence community, took the first images of earth from space as part of its CORONA program, which began in 1960. By the time that program ended in 1972, U.S. reconnaissance satellites could see objects on earth less than two meters long.
Denver, CO-based Space Imaging was one of the first satellite imaging companies, and its IKONOS satellite, launched in September 1999, is the most sophisticated commercial satellite currently in orbit. In the high-resolution images it produces, objects on earth with dimensions as small as one meter are clearly visible.
Although the NRO won't give exact figures, most experts believe the NRO is now capable of taking pictures with six-inch resolution.
While commercial satellites are not as capable as the NRO's best technology, they are good enough to provide plenty of useful intelligence. Space Imaging already has a license from the Commerce Department to launch a half-meter resolution satellite, which it hopes to have in orbit by 2005. A host of other U.S. and international companies are already flying high-resolution satellites, and are prepared to join Space Imaging and offer one-meter resolution or better (see related story).
Commercial imaging satellites make it possible for the buyers of satellite imagery to, among other things, distinguish between trucks and tanks, expose movements of large groups such as troops or refugees, and identify the probable location of natural resources, wrote Ann Florini and Yahya Dehquanzada of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Issues in Science and Technology in 1999.
So why has shutter control never been imposed?
First, shutter control is not necessary to prohibit a satellite company from selling images to an agent of a foreign nation or to terrorists. Such imagery sales are already prohibited by the same State Department export controls that govern the sale of conventional military equipment abroad.
Shutter control authority was originally established because of a concern that detailed satellite pictures of military positions would be broadcast on the evening news, or printed in the paper.
The main reason why this concern has not materialized, according to Pike, is latency.
In order for information about U.S. troop movements in Uzbekistan or Pakistan to be compromised, for example, satellite images would have to be obtained from a commercial firm within a couple of days at most.
To obtain a new satellite picture from Space Imaging, however, can take as much as sixty days, according to Gary Napier, company spokesman. This includes time to get the satellite in position to take the photograph, and to process and deliver the image, Napier said.
Space Imaging's one IKONOS satellite orbits the earth from north to south, always passing over the poles, about fourteen times a day. It slowly tracks east to west in sync with the sun, so that local time at the spot directly below the satellite is always 10:30 am. With this track it takes the satellite three days (42 orbits) to cover every square inch of the earth once. Even if instant delivery of an IKONOS image to the customer were possible, then, it could take three days for an order to be delivered, Napier said. This doesn't even account for the possibility of cloud cover.
In the real world, a lot of the concern has been substantially overestimated, Pike says.
Another inhibitor is cost. Space Imaging charges $3,500 for a new picture of a 100-square-kilometer swath of foreign soil -- the minimum size. Even if someone had a very specific idea of where to look, and time were not an issue, attempting to gather intelligence about U.S. military positions by using commercial satellite imagery could quickly get very expensive.
The consumer of commercial imagery for military and intelligence purposes, in fact, has turned out to be the U.S. military.
Though the great detail provided by the estimated six-inch resolution of NRO satellites is very useful for specific intelligence purposes, DOD has found commercial imagery to be cost effective for more general uses such as mapping.
Space Imaging and almost every other commercial satellite company contacted by DI&ER identified DOD and the U.S. government as major customers. Even foreign-based companies count on the U.S. government for sales (see related story).
I would certainly assume and hope that [DOD is] buying a great deal of IKONOS imagery of Afghanistan, Pike said.
Still, while commercial imaging satellites have not become the threat that they were originally thought to be, the technology is still developing. And while the United States has a great ability to control domestic companies, which happen to be leading the way in commercial imaging at present, there are no legal means, available to get companies based abroad not to sell sensitive images to our enemies, according to Jeffrey Richelson, an intelligence expert and author of a book on satellite reconnaissance. Only diplomatic influence can be used to prevent such sales, Richelson said.
ImageSat International, a Cyprus-based company partially backed by an Israeli aerospace company, for example, promises to have a high-resolution multiple-satellite imaging constellation in place by 2005. This satellite, according to the ImageSat web site, will be capable of delivering updated images of a particular site several times daily. -- Hampton Stephens
Copyright 2001 Defense Information and Electronics Report
