Defense News October 23, 2008
Congress Overrules DoD, Intel Chief on Mapping Sats
By William Matthews
As a matter of basic economics, Congress' decision to cancel the BASIC satellite program makes good sense, civilian satellite experts say.
The National Reconnaissance Office can get the same satellite imagery for less than half the cost by buying it from commercial satellite companies, said Edward Jurkevics, a satellite and geospatial technology industry analyst.
Pulling the plug on BASIC was a demonstration of "fiscal responsibility in the face of the failure that has taken place before," said Charles Vick, a senior analyst at GlobalSecurity.org.
Congress "withdrew funding" for the proposed satellites, known as the Broad Area Space-based Imagery Collector program, confirmed Michael Birmingham, spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence. Language ordering the program cut was included in a classified annex to the 2009 Defense Appropriations Act approved by the House and Senate in late September.
The congressional action put lawmakers at odds with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. On Sept. 8, they gave the go-ahead for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to spend $1.7 billion to build and launch two BASIC satellites by 2012.
Commercial-imagery firms had lobbied intensely against the BASIC program. Two U.S. companies, GeoEye of Virginia and DigitalGlobe, of Colorado, already provide satellite imagery to U.S. intelligence agencies and argue they c an provide the same imagery cheaper.
Gary Payton, deputy under secretary of the Air Force for space, contends that BASIC would be an important addition to commercial imagery purchases. "We see BASIC being integrated with current operations more tightly than we could ever tie [commercial imagery]," he said by email. "These targets and operations will have operational security implications that the combatant commander may not be comfortable supporting with a commercial imagery purchase," he said.
That argument did not gain traction among analysts. The NRO should focus on the ultra-advanced capability satellites it refers to as "exquisite systems," Jurkevics said. Government ownership of "run-of-the-mill" commercial satellites doesn't make sense, he said.
BASIC was meant to be a less complicated replacement for the NRO's Future Imagery Architecture, a satellite program that burned through nearly $10 billion before being canceled in 2005 without launching any satellites.
"It went way over budget and they had considerable trouble with the technology," Vick said.
By canceling BASIC, lawmakers have at least temporarily stopped the NRO from competing against commercial satellite companies, Vick said.
Senior Pentagon officials, including acquisition chief John Young, warned last summer that such competition might violate a 2003 presidential directive to use commercial imagery to the "maximum practical extent."
But Congress left an opening through which intelligence agencies might re-enter the commercial-class satellite business. Lawmakers provided $300 million and instructions to the director of national intelligence to conduct a study on future overhead imagery requirements and capabilities. Due next spring, the study is to include cost estimates of the space and ground elements of all options studied.
U.S. intelligence agencies tend to favor government ownership of satellites because "they argue that they need control," Jurkevics said. He contends that they don't. During wartime, the military and intelligence agencies can commandeer satellites if they deem that necessary, he said.
They can also write into contracts that they have priority when it comes to collecting images, Jurkevics said.
The National Geospatial-intelligence Agency, the nation's map makers, says there are benefits to relying on commercial satellites for imagery. A key one is that it is much easier to share commercial images with allies because they are unclassified. Images collected by U.S. government-owned satellites are generally classified and off limits even to partners in wartime coalitions.
GeoEye-1 provides U.S. intelligence agencies with 0.41-meter resolution images. DigitalGlobe's WorldView-1 offers images at 0.5-meter resolution.
U.S. agencies also acquire imagery from about a dozen less sharp-eyed U.S. and foreign-owned commercial satellites, the NGA said.
© Copyright 2008, Army Times Publishing Company
