GIF 10-3 (April 2012)

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

April 2012 Volume 10, Issue 3

www.GIF-kmi.com

Launch Leader

Gen. Bruce Carlson (Ret.)

DirectorNational Reconnaissance Office

EnhancedView O Big Data O Commercial SAR Space and Intelligence Cybersecurity O Rick Ambrose

Geospatial intelliGence Forum april 2012 Volume 10 • issue 3

Features coVer / Q&a

17

Departments

2

3

14

25

26

27

Editor’s Perspective

Program Notes/People

Industry Raster

Intel Update

Homeland Vector

Calendar, Directory

inDustry interView

Dr. Walter S. ScottExecutive Vice PresidentChief Technical Officer

DigitalGlobe

28

General Bruce Carlson (Ret.)Director

National Reconnaissance Office

GEOINT’s Big Data ChallengeUsers of large quantities of geospatial data face two challenges: how and where to store it, and how to move it around for analysis and exploitation without degrading the performance of networks and systems. By Peter Buxbaum

4

High Stakes for EnhancedViewEven as the EnhancedView satellite imagery program faces possible budget cuts, it has achieved a number of significant successes in the past year, underscoring its potential to be a transformative intelligence capability.By Karen E. Thuermer

10

Perspectives on Commercial SARThe Commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite Working Group works to explain the capabilities and advantages of space-based SAR. GIF recently asked members of the group on some of the roles of their industry in geospatial intelligence and the key issues it faces.22

Space and Intel CybersecurityInformation assurance and cybersecurity should be developed as fundamental elements of new systems.By Steve Hawkins

9

Seeking the “Speed of Need”Industry veteran Rick Ambrose, president of Lockheed Martin IS & GS National, recently offered his leadership views on space industry and his company’s plans.By Harrison Donnelly

8

Cloud technology has the potential to transform the intelli-gence community’s computing capabilities, according to a recently released report, but only if it is seen not as a short-term budget approach but a whole new way of doing business.

The report, “Cloud Computing: Risks, Benefits and Mission Enhancement for the Intelligence Community,” was prepared by the Cloud Computing Task Force of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA).

The key, the report argues based on interviews with some 50 government and industry intelligence experts, is that cloud computing has the potential to expand access to the power of IT, while at the same time reducing operations and sustainment costs. But it is no panacea, and by itself won’t solve the community’s information sharing and cultural issues.

Above all, the decision to move to the cloud must be made on a case-by-case basis, and not only improve mission effectiveness, but also make sense in the mission’s broader context. Although information security remains a major concern for many agencies, cloud technology can actually improve security, but only when it is built into the model—if not, cloud architectures can “dramatically increase risk,” the INSA warns.

The most fundamental change that needs to happen lies in organizational culture, the authors maintain, pointing to a vital need to change from the mindset of controlling information and resources to encouraging information sharing across the community.

Cloud computing will also require acquisition reform aimed at making defense processes and regulations much more like the shorter technology development life cycles found in industry. In addition, agencies need to look for effective standards for cloud adoption, and in the long run move to open standards.

“The advent of cloud computing represents a powerful trend that promises to change the landscape of the IC,” the report concludes.

The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community

eDitorial

Managing EditorHarrison Donnelly [email protected] Editorial ManagerLaura Davis [email protected] EditorLaural Hobbes [email protected] A. Buxbaum • Cheryl GerberKaren E. Thuermer • William Murray

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Tony Moraco

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has appointed Tony Moraco, executive vice president for opera-tions and performance excellence, as president of SAIC’s Intelligence,

Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. Moraco has been respon-sible for enterprisewide business support in infor-mation technology, facili-ties, security, program execution, procurement, shared services and opera-tional initiatives. In his new role, Moraco will lead nearly 13,000 analysts, scientists, engineers, and business professionals providing support for customers across the full spectrum of national security programs,

including cybersecurity. He succeeds Stu Shea, who was named the company’s chief operating officer.

Frank Montoya Jr. has joined the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the national counterintelli-gence executive. Montoya joined ODNI from the FBI’s Honolulu Division, where he was the special agent in charge.

The list of Navy rear admi-rals (lower half) nomi-nated for appointment to the rank of rear admiral includes Elizabeth L. Train, currently serving as director for Intelligence, J2, Joint Staff, and Jonathan W. White, currently serving as commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Stennis Space Center, Miss.

OpenGeo, the open source technology company behind the OpenGeo

Suite, has announced changes to its senior management to build on the company’s significant growth. President Chris Holmes will move into the role of chairman and founder, with Chief Operating Officer Edward Pickle becoming chief executive officer. Vanessa Hamer, director of opera-tions for OpenGeo parent OpenPlans, has been named to the new position of vice president, opera-tions.

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffPROGRAM NOTES

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffPEOPLE

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking to develop inexpensive, “disposable” satellites to provide timely overhead imagery for disadvantaged users.

Today, the lowest echelon members of the U.S. military deployed in remote overseas locations are unable to obtain on-demand satellite imagery in a timely and persistent manner for pre-mission planning. This is due to lack of satellite overflight opportunities, inability to receive direct satellite downlinks at the tactical level and information flow restrictions.

DARPA’s Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements (SeeMe) program aims to give mobile individual warfighters access to on-demand, space-based tactical information in remote and beyond-line-of-sight conditions. If successful, SeeMe will provide small squads and individual teams the ability to receive timely imagery of their specific overseas loca-tion directly from a small satellite.

“We envision a constellation of small satellites, at a fraction of the cost of airborne systems, that would allow deployed warfighters overseas to hit ‘see me’ on existing handheld devices and in less than 90 minutes receive a satellite image of their precise location to aid in mission planning,” said Dave Barnhart, DARPA program manager. “To create inexpensive, easily manufacturable small satellites costing $500,000 apiece will require leveraging existing nontraditional aerospace off-the-shelf technologies for rapid manufacturing, such as the mobile phone industry’s original design manufacturers, as well as developing advanced technologies for optics, power, propulsion and communications to keep size and weight down.”

The SeeMe constellation may consist of some two dozen satellites, each lasting 60-90 days in a very low-earth orbit before de-orbiting and completely burning up, leaving no space debris and causing no re-entry hazard. The program may leverage DARPA’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which is developing an aircraft-based satellite

launch platform for payloads on the order of 100 pounds. ALASA seeks to provide low-cost, rapid launch of small satellites into any required orbit.

“SeeMe is a logical adjunct to UAV technology, which will continue to provide local or regional very high-resolution coverage, but which can’t cover extended areas without frequent refueling,” Barnhart said. “With a SeeMe constellation, we hope to directly support warfighters in multiple deployed overseas locations simultaneously with no logistics or mainte-nance costs beyond the warfighters’ handhelds.”

Low-Cost Satellites Sought for Tactical Imagery

www.GIF-kmi.com GIF 1 0 . 3 | 3

Geospatial intelligence practitioners have an insatiable appetite for data. They want to slice, dice, crunch and analyze that data, and they want to keep it for long periods of time. Meanwhile, geospatial data sets are growing exponentially, especially with the increased utilization of imagery, video and LiDAR.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency expects to be collecting four pet-abytes of data annually in coming years. That’s 4 million gigabytes.

These conditions challenge users of geospatial data on two levels. The first is the question of how and where to store the massive volumes of data. Another is how to move the data around for analysis and exploitation without degrading the perfor-mance of networks and systems.

There are a number of approaches being taken today to handle the problems associated with “big data.” Storage systems are being developed that attempt to make the most-used data available on a prior-ity basis. There are systems that break up

and distribute massive files so that they can be processed with available compu-tational resources and then reassembled when needed.

Various management techniques are being brought to bear, and software is being deployed to handle the storage and processing of large geospatial intelligence data files. Storage-as-a-service is a leading-edge approach to handling the problems associated with big data.

“Examining the world requires large amounts of data, no matter if we are look-ing at large regions with broad areas of cov-erage, or smaller areas with high levels of detail,” said Jason Dalton, senior director for applied technology at GeoEye Analytics. “In that sense, storage has always been an issue for geospatial systems. Geospatial intelligence requires us to have a thorough picture of the ground truth, which means imagery, terrain, demographics, infra-structure, events and all of their attributes come into play. With these data require-ments come large storage requirements.”

The number of satellites gathering geo-spatial data has increased in the last few years, but more importantly, the quality of the imagery has improved dramatically. “It is not just the volume of data, but the intensity of the data that is increasing,” said Kevin Haar, chief executive officer of Appistry.

“This sensor data may include visual images or video, LiDAR, infrared, audio or other types,” added Pratish Shah, director of marketing at Quantum3D. “Video cap-tured at 1080p resolution as a UAV is fly-ing over an area over many hours captures gigabytes and gigabytes of data.”

“The problem is being compounded by how much data is coming from advanced sensor platforms like Blue Devil and Gorgon Stare,” said Patrick Humm, pres-ident of Hie Electronics. “Analysts want to review the data over a multi-year time span. So it is one thing to gather a pet-abyte of data. It is another thing to access critical data nine months or two years later so that you can compare that with the

By Peter BuxBaum

GIF CorresPondent

as the volume oF IntellIGenCe data Grows, aGenCIes must Be aBle to store and move massIve amounts oF InFormatIon.

www.GIF-kmi.com4 | GIF 1 0 . 3

intelligence you are getting from your cur-rent mission.”

exPloItatIon and dIssemInatIon

Perhaps even more significant is the exploitation and dissemination require-ment for geospatial data. “Keeping data at geospatial analysts’ fingertips is key to effectively supporting them in their mission,” said Dalton. “Increasingly, this is also including exploitation tools deliv-ered online, on demand. As improved end-user applications have driven expectations higher, the requirements for data have been increasing as well.”

“We have found the volume and inten-sity of geospatial data to be as good an example of the problems associated with big data as any application in the world,” said Haar. “The defense and intelligence communities try to take data and make it geolocation specific so that they can pass to the warfighter the data that is most rel-evant to them.”

There are several factors to consider when tackling the issue of geospatial data storage. “Do you store each and every frame? Or every other frame?” asked Shah. “You have to consider whether you keep everything at high resolution, or compress, or even capture and store lower-resolu-tion data. Having a lot of data is nice, but it is not all critical and necessary. Storing and managing all the data can be sim-plified and better managed if quick deci-sions and immediate analysis can be done on the captured sensor data. If the data is not actionable or critical, then data storage and management may not be required.”

“One thing we have learned about deal-ing with big data,” said Haar, “is that part of the art form is how not to move it around once you get the data in the right data center and storage device. You want to do the analytics without moving the data any further.”

One possible approach for an enter-prise is to centralize storage at the net-work layer using high volume storage area network hardware. “This approach is use-ful for archive, workgroup file storage and occasional access,” said Dalton, “but for big data processing and online access, even fast communication links create a bottleneck for input and output of data. Distributed parallel file systems typical of big data infrastructures are quite useful for geospatial data that may not be formatted

and organized for database storage and retrieval, as well as unstructured data that can be geospatially referenced.”

The NoSQL database is another method of storage that leverages distributed nodes and redundant data. “Plus, it adds a famil-iar database access layer to the data so that users and systems that are accustomed to working with traditional databases are able to be effective on the new systems in short order,” Dalton said.

storaGe medIa

Storage media is also an element to be considered. Solid state storage media are fast and reliable but are still far more expensive than the alternatives, which include Blu-ray optical media, spinning-disk hard drives and tape archives. Blu-ray and hard drives are less expensive, and their density levels are improving. Tape storage is inexpensive and dense, but very slow.

“Having multiple tiers of data allows you to store the most important data on the fastest storage devices,” said Bruce Tabino, chief architect for the data cen-ter services business unit at NJVC. “Tape will not be as fast as primary storage. Solid state drives provide much better perfor-mance than spinning disks but the issue is one of cost. Solid state storage is signif-icantly more expensive than high density drives and even more so than tape.”

On-board storage today is done via solid state storage, according to Shah. “Using solid state technology improves reliability, durability, ruggedness and performance,” he explained. “Each of Quantum3D’s sys-tems rely on solid state storage for storage of system and captured data.”

Quantum3D offers ruggedized embed-ded systems that are used in sensor acquisi-tion and storage applications. The systems, which are placed in air and ground vehicle environments where information is gath-ered, rely on solid state drives for storage of captured data.

Hie Electronics offers a device called TeraStack, an active archive using mul-tiple media that is forward deployable so that data can be captured, analyzed and exploited locally and without using much previous, in-theater bandwidth. It is also energy efficient, operating on 600 watts.

The device provides 92 terabytes of stor-age, relying primarily on the Blu-ray opti-cal medium. “Blu-ray media is extremely

resilient and guards data against harm from temperature fluctuations, moisture and excess humidity, water damage, power interruptions or spikes, magnetic varia-tions, critical system failures, aging and human handling,” said Humm. “TeraStack is the size of a two-drawer file cabinet. Two men can move it, and it runs on less than 600 watts off a small diesel generator or an array of portable solar cells.”

TeraStack archives data based on pre-set business rules, which may but do not necessarily have to include the age of the data. Other factors found in data metatags, such as times and places of particular interest, may also be incorporated into the archiving rules.

“The 5 percent of data that is accessed 95 percent of the time is kept hot in the buffer at the front of the server,” said Humm. “The other 95 percent goes to sleep, perhaps forever, but can be rehy-drated into the buffer as needed.”

Data kept in the TeraStack buffer is accessible at network speeds. Data archived in back-up media may take several minutes to access.

The portability of TeraStack addresses the bandwidth limits associated with the transport of this type of data. “The data can be captured initially and analyzed close to the end-user,” said Humm. “We are for-ward deployable and can operate without a huge diesel generator supporting a hard drive-based air-conditioned storage con-tainer. We are able to provide the storage more reliably for less money.”

seCure, aCtIve arChIve

GeoEye offers several platforms for storage, analysis and dissemination of geo-spatial intelligence.

“We have developed an imagery host-ing, provisioning and dissemination plat-form called EyeQ that enables us to host large volumes of data for our customers, providing on-demand access via web ser-vices and a web application to GEOINT data from many sources, not just our own collection platforms,” said Dalton. “We also offer a geospatial cloud analytics plat-form built on the Hadoop Map/Reduce infrastructure to handle big geospatial data at petabyte scales. Both systems are deployed into locations throughout the community.”

GeoEye recently selected storage solutions from Cleversafe to meet its

as the volume oF IntellIGenCe data Grows, aGenCIes must Be aBle to store and move massIve amounts oF InFormatIon.


requirements for a reliable and secure active archive to maintain its image archive. Cleversafe’s approach has been to disperse chunks of large geospatial files across an array of computational resources that can be reas-sembled as the original image on demand.

“Instead of making mul-tiple copies of huge files to make sure data is not lost,” explained Russ Kennedy, Cleversafe’s vice president of product strategy, “an object like a pic-ture of Earth is broken into a number of pieces and those pieces are stored in

independent storage nodes. When they are put back together they can be recon-structed perfectly.”

GeoEye selected Cleversafe, according to Kennedy, because it had petabytes of

data on tape and was looking to actively store the information online and to recover it efficiently without making multiple cop-ies. “GeoEye is able to consolidate their processing into large Cleversafe-managed clouds of five to seven petabytes across three locations,” he added.

Another approach taken to the man-agement of big data is exemplified by Appistry, which takes the analytic capa-bilities to where the data is stored instead of moving the data around to where it is being crunched. This approach also involves chopping the huge geospatial data files into smaller pieces for distributed processing.

“We have built what we call an analytic pipeline,” said Haar, “where we can string together a series of analytical steps for big data direct to the server where the data is stored. The trick is to take the work to the data as opposed to trying to move the data to every time you want to do something with it.”

Appistry does not provide or specify any particular storage hardware. “We unify all hard drives in a machine to make them work as a single logical unit,” said Haar. “In dealing with blobs of geospatial data, we add a software layer that allows the user storing data in a highly distributed mode to execute analytics on the data where the data is located. We don’t try to second-guess the user, but we do provide an easy mechanism to define the best way to decompose the data for subsequent pro-cessing. We provide a framework for the analyst to use best-of-breed tools and the plumbing across all the machines so that data sets can be chopped up into the most optimal size units for later processing.”

NetApp, a storage company that focuses on spinning-disk hard drive media, brings management techniques and software to the big data table. “We have a single tier-less architecture that manages data up and down the different storage modes so that the hottest data is always placed in the fast-est component,” said Kirk Kern, the com-pany’s chief technology officer. “When a request comes in, the hot data gets accel-erated to the fastest medium.”

Cloud data manaGement

Software solutions include data com-pression and increased use of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), an emerging industry standard that defines

Russ Kennedy

As the intelligence com-munity looks for solutions to its big data challenges, one of the leaders in industry’s response is Army Major General John M. Custer (Ret.), who currently serves as director of EMC’s federal strategic missions and programs.

Custer’s lengthy career in military intelligence included service as commanding gen-eral of the Army Intelligence Center and School.

Storage has become crucial simply because of the volumes of data being generated, Custer observed in a recent interview. “We’re living in an Age of Big Data, where pedabytes of data are created on a weekly basis. The other issue is analytics. How do we manage, make sense and extract value from immense mountains of data? Collection is easy—we have always been plat-form- and sensor-centric.

“How we transform mountains of data into actionable intelligence, in real time, is the key,” Custer continued. “Technology in the geospa-tial market space continues to evolve. The EMC architecture allows inserting new technologies without ripping and replacing along the way. As government agencies move forward in the years to come, technology can be removed or replaced non-disruptively, thereby ensuring maximum data availability on the latest technology.”

Custer noted that Isilon EMC storage is cur-rently in use extensively throughout the media and entertainment industry, adding that the ISR community faces very similar challenges. “The need for a simple-to-set up, maintain and grow architecture that scales capacity, throughput and

cost predictably, and doesn’t require teams of personnel to manage.”

Geospatial services have a great opportunity to capitalize on technological shifts to drive increased revenue and margin, Custer said. “By creating appli-cations that can be easily hosted via cloud networks and securely consumed via mobile devices, GIS providers can drive greater

efficiency in their business and a better over-all experience for their customers. For exam-ple, NASA World Wind, an EMC Isilon customer, utilizes open platforms to create state-of-the-art geospatial services that are not only free of charge, but easily consumable on tablets and smartphones.”

EMC Isilon is an ideal solution for big data challenges, he said, because it creates a sin-gle file system capable of scaling to more than 1 million IOPS and 15 Petabytes of capacity. This enables geospatial information providers to unify content into a single, shared infrastruc-ture, consolidating critical information to accel-erate access, reduce management and speed time to value.

“As image resolution continues to rapidly increase and drive exponential data growth, Isilon scale-out storage is the only solu-tion capable of scaling in-line with business demands, minimizing capital and operational costs, while improving data access and work-flow productivity. This unique approach to data storage propels significant productivity gains and cost reductions for geospatial information providers,” Custer said.

Kirk Kern

Maj. Gen.John M. Custer (Ret.)

Transforming Mountains of Data

[email protected]


the interface that applications use to create, retrieve, update and delete data elements from the cloud. “CDMI also func-tions as a management framework,” said Kern, “so that users can query the stor-age container and request that so many objects migrate from one content reposi-tory to another.”

Kern believes that CDMI, which is an open source technology, will facilitate big data solutions. He added that increas-ing numbers of early adopters of CDMI are beginning to appreciate its value for big data solutions. NetApp offers turn-key products for big data storage and processing which include pre-packaged analytics, bandwidth solutions and con-tent repositories.

NJVC provides vendor-neutral storage management recommendations and inte-grated solutions. “We integrate total solu-tions into the customer environment. We collaborate with our customers to come up with the best solution based on perfor-mance and cost for large scale enterprises,” said Tabino, noting that the company is

supporting the intelligence community in these efforts.

“The forward-leaning approach at this point is to go to storage-as-a-service,” said Tabino. “This is an approach that seeks to satisfy customer requirements as opposed to the customer specifying a solution. The solution gets turned on like electricity. You don’t care where it comes from as long as it works. With storage, you don’t have to care what the storage medium is or which ven-dor is providing it as long as it meets your needs. It’s the same with cloud comput-ing. It’s all about providing a service and not having to worry about the kind of envi-ronment the applications are running on.”

Customers and potential customers are beginning to feel comfortable with the notion of storage-as-a-service, accord-ing to Tabino. “The capability exists, the opportunity exists,” said Tabino. “Bidding on winning contracts and performing in those types of environments is the next critical step.”

Storage media continues to evolve to provide greater capacity at lower costs.

Hard disk drives and Blu-ray optical media are getting denser, allowing more data to be stored on each disk and drive in an envi-ronment that will be dealing not merely with terabytes and petabytes of informa-tion, but with exabytes. Not only does this development increase the capacity of the medium, but “the costs will be coming down as well,” according to Humm.

Solid state storage, with its speed and stability, is also coming down in price, a development which is motivating compa-nies like Cleversafe to begin to introduce solid state as part of its storage offerings.

The challenge for military and intel-ligence agencies, according to Kern, is to develop partnerships with the big data community to incorporate the technologies that are being developed. “Government,” he said, “needs to take advantage of and ingest these new technologies.” O

BIG DATA IT’S ON ISILON

• Store&AnAlyzeyourDAtA• ProtectyourDAtA• Secureyournetwork

www.emc.com/federal

GAme-chAnGinGtechnoloGieSforiSr

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected]

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With more than three decades in the space industry, Rick Ambrose, president of Lockheed Martin IS & GS National, will be on board when the National Space Symposium convenes in April in Colorado to discuss ways to advance space programs “to inspire, enable and propel humanity.”

Ambrose, who recently joined the board of the sponsoring Space Foundation, will bring his experience in both space and satellite pro-grams and space-related IT and ground control systems to the event, which is expected to draw more than 9,000 participants.

For Ambrose, the biggest challenge facing the space industry is derived from pressures on the federal budget, and the long-term con-sequences of a slowdown in new starts and development. “There are not a lot of brand-new programs, so we have to find ways to preserve our development and engineering staffs,” he said in a recent interview. “There is a lot of focus on that, not just at our company but across the industry, as well as trying to keep the pipeline going.

“That’s why the Space Foundation, as well as Lockheed Martin, has focused on science, technology, engineering and math education. We want to make sure we draw kids into that arena. You have to have ways to pull them in, such as development programs and things that make a difference to people. Space is extremely attractive in draw-ing kids into the engineering sciences, and we want to maintain that focus,” he said.

“The Space Foundation really wants to find a way to bring every-one together—government, industry and other nations—to provide the framework and support system for advanced space-related endeav-ors,” Ambrose added.

The symposium will include an event called Cyber 1.2, a separate but complementary full-day session offering presentations and panel discussions about the developing cyberspace and cybersecurity arena.

Cybersecurity concerns affect the space industry just like every-one else, Ambrose observed, although there are some unique aspects to the issue as it plays out in space. “If you have a network and a com-puter, you have a cyber issue. It doesn’t matter if you’re space-borne or on the ground—you need to build in a defensive posture for that capability, to protect your assets.

“There is uniqueness, in that you have a distant asset with an RF interface. There is also some help to that, though, because no one can touch it. The flip side is that you have more complexities, in that you have the phenomenology of the space environment, so your systems have to be more protected,” he said.

leveraGe For aFFordaBIlIty

Budget issues will also affect Ambrose’s plans for his division of Lockheed Martin, where he has been an executive since 2000.

“We’re trying to leverage anything we can do to partner with our customers and help them drive affordability,” he said. “So reuse of the technology from areas where the government has already made an

investment is part and parcel of what we’re doing going forward.

“We’re also working on big data and advanced analytics. For example, we have a large area devoted to open source intelligence. There, we have both commercial and government cli-ents, and we’re helping them with physical security using open source media. It’s eye-opening what you can discover in open source and on the Internet,” Ambrose continued.

Ambrose pointed to three major areas of focus for the company. “First, we’re partnering with our customers and assuring that we can do their mission at the most affordable cost,” he explained. “We’ve taken some ideas about how they can execute their mission and reduce their costs, and distributed them to several agencies, which are picking and choosing the ideas and modifying them. We need to ensure that they can do their mission, and we have to transform the cost that it takes to serve that mission.”

Secondly, the company is pushing out to the commercial world—specifically, the larger, critical-infrastructure sector, such as energy, health care and transportation. “We’re moving to predictive analyt-ics, so that based on discovery and the Internet, we can predict future behaviors, and either know we have a security issue or how to go help someone,” he said.

The third area is a strong thrust internationally, with Ambrose’s organization taking a strong footprint in the U.K., Australia and the UAE.

“We’re also looking at innovation—not from a pure technol-ogy standpoint, but also innovation on how we deliver those mis-sions more effectively,” he continued. “We drive to our employees the importance of speed, relevance and value, and we’ve talked to our cus-tomers about this. The challenges warfighters face include not only emerging threats, but also rapidly emerging threats.

“So we talk about doing mission at the ‘speed of need’—it’s not reckless, but it’s how we build up an agile, resilient infrastructure that our customers can draw from on demand. We use the term ‘mission on demand.’ The second part of that is relevance—what’s relevant and important to the warfighter, in whatever environment they are acting in. So we have to be relevant to deliver capability. If it’s not the right time and the right capability, it’s not going to matter. Value would be the whole issue around how we have to perform, and to deliver the right capability at the right price. That’s critical in a budget-con-strained environment,” Ambrose concluded. O

Rick Ambrose

loCkheed martIn exeCutIve amBrose oFFers leadershIP vIews on sPaCe Industry and hIs ComPany’s Plans.By harrIson donnelly

GIF edItor

For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at [email protected] or search our online archives

for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.


As a community, we invest large amounts of money to develop, deploy, operate and maintain the most advanced intel-ligence and space systems. At Raytheon, our emphasis is not only providing new technology, but also developing information assurance and cybersecurity as fundamental elements of these systems, and the networks and nodes that support them.

Protecting these complex systems requires the most robust, full-spectrum, advanced cybersecurity capabilities available today within the intelligence community and Department of Defense. These integrated cybersecurity solutions protect the confidenti-ality, integrity and availability of critical information and infra-structures with the objective of total mission assurance.

Mission-critical intelligence and space systems are vulner-able to various levels of threat from terrorists and nation state attacks. There are many ways to protect these systems from cyber-attack, and the more techniques used in a layered defense the more difficult it becomes for a sophisticated attacker to pen-etrate these systems.

However, there is no cyber-defense that will prevent the even-tual penetration of these systems by a dedicated and persistent attacker. They will get in. Finding them once they are in, control-ling their ability to exfiltrate sensitive information and architect-ing systems to be resilient to denial of service attacks is critical to mission assurance.

Cybersecurity developers must think like an attacker and develop not only solutions to block the cyber-threat from enter-ing intelligence and space systems, but also implement monitor-ing capabilities and responsive, adaptive architectures to operate through a cyber-attack and accomplish the intended mission.

ClosInG the GaP

This cannot be accomplished with simply the integration of the best available commercial cybersecurity technologies. It requires technologies to close the gap against this severe threat. These technologies can only be provided by companies that work on the leading edge of cybersecurity as well as have an under-standing of the mission requirements and system architecture of our nation’s most critical intelligence and space systems.

It’s also important to note that cybersecurity threats are not always external. Increasingly, we face risks to critical networks and systems from trusted employees, whether the incident is

malicious or accidental. Raytheon’s insider risk management approach involves a continuous process of monitoring, risk assessment, pol-icy definition for mitigating those risks, situation analysis and reme-diation of problems that occur. Insider threat protection solutions proactively defend against inter-nal threats, constantly monitor-ing and protecting against breach, fraud, data and intellectual prop-erty leaks, theft and sabotage.

Cybersecurity provisions are critical, but this must also be accomplished in a way that the mission can still be completed as well. A specific challenge facing intelligence and space programs is protecting and improving the sharing of information between government agencies and mission partners while sustaining nec-essary separation of information at various levels of security.

For example, many ground systems operate in classified envi-ronments and require access to unclassified resources or distrib-ute their resulting mission products to users at multiple levels of security. Raytheon has successfully incorporated new technolo-gies to move security services such as trusted cross-domain and multiple domain information sharing solutions into an embed-ded infrastructure. Through partnership with intelligence and space system developers to develop a cross-domain solution, we can ensure that data maintains its designated sensitivity level throughout the information sharing and transmission processes.

In summary, the challenges of protecting our complex and critical intelligence and space systems are compounded by the need to balance affordability with providing mission capability. It is essential that as we develop new systems, we build the infor-mation assurance in from the ground up. The cost of an unpro-tected system being taken down is significant—it’s incalculable in its potential impact to national security. O



InFormatIon assuranCe and CyBerseCurIty should Be develoPed as Fundamental elements oF new systems.By steve hawkIns

(Editor’s Note: The Cyber 1.2 event, being held in conjunc-tion with the National Space Symposium in April, will focus on the intersection of cyberspace and space. Participants in several government and industry panels on cyberspace poli-cies were scheduled to include Steve Hawkins, vice president,

Information Security Solutions, Raytheon, who recently responded to the following question posed by GIF: “What unique cybersecurity challenges are facing intelligence and space programs, and what can government and industry to address them?”)

Steve Hawkins


A report expected to be released this spring by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence could play a critical role in the future of EnhancedView, the innovative public/private program that is launching a new generation of high resolution imaging satellites.

The program, which has already been slated for a $50 million cut in the current fiscal year, faces potentially substantial further reductions in future years as the nation grapples with its fiscal def-icits and reorients its strategic and military perspectives. At the same time, the program and its contractors have achieved a number of significant successes in the past year, underscoring its potential to be a transformative intelligence capability.

The decade-long, $7 billion program combines U.S. commercial imaging companies in need of a big customer and the government, which needed high quality imaging as a service without the bureau-cracy and cost of building such a project from scratch.

GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, along with their host of subcontrac-tors, received the government contracts, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for more than three years has been getting the images it needs to support the Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence community.

The looming debate over EnhancedView reflects fundamen-tal differences within the national security community over the comparative value of direct government and commercial

intelligence-collecting systems. Beyond the obvious potential impact on GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, ana-lysts are warning that the impact of EnhancedView reductions could play a critical role in the broader future of the commercial remote sensing industry.

Today, many regard EnhancedView as more important than ever, arguing that commercial imagery from it is a key element in providing a “geospatial foundation” to support national security needs.

“It is very difficult and oftentimes impossible to predict where in the world the next crisis or natural disaster will occur,” remarked Steven P. Wallach, senior vice president, product integration, GeoEye.

Large area coverage of commercial imagery is a critical element in providing the base for integrating various intelligence and other information sources to support planning and operations.

“In today’s world, we seldom operate alone, and one of the strengths of commercial imagery is that it is easily shared with coalition partners to support a wide range of national security

desPIte ImaGery ProGram’s suCCesses, BudGet Cuts loom.

By karen e. thuermer

GIF CorresPondent

Steve P. Wallach


needs—these include military operations, disaster relief, human-itarian assistance, nation building and so on,” Wallach added.

EnhancedView also provides a more resilient imaging con-stellation. These additional commercial satellites increase revisit opportunities and persistent surveillance over areas of interest, while also increasing the redundancy of collection assets to bet-ter ensure continuity of operations in the event of a system failure.

In addition, EnhancedView increases the availability of geo-spatial data for national security and military operations.

“National systems tend to focus on high priority intelligence needs, where commercial imagery provides a ready source for producing geospatial data,” Wallach emphasized. “Imagery from EnhancedView is a primary source for NGA’s contract and co-pro-duction programs.”

For example, EnhancedView imagery is provided as a leading source for the Multinational Geospatial Co-production Program (MGCP), where around 30 countries work together to produce and share high quality geospatial data.

“While geospatial data supports the broad spectrum of national security needs, it is essential to support military oper-ations, where U.S. weapons and systems are dependent on these data to perform mission planning and rehearsal, command and control, advanced navigation, targeting and other functions,” he concluded.

Walter Scott, chief technical officer and founder of DigitalGlobe, emphasized how EnhancedView has already proven to be highly effective and cost-effective in supporting that virtual surveillance capability. “It delivers great value to the government and taxpay-ers, giving access to nine satellites over the life of the program at a fraction of the cost it would take the government to build, deploy and manage the satellites themselves,” he said.

Industry ImPaCt

Cuts in the U.S. defense budget, however, could have a sig-nificant impact on the EnhancedView program, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, and the broader geospatial and satellite imagery community,

“Budget cuts would significantly reduce the ability of com-mercial imagery to effectively meet the increasing demands of the military and first responders,” Wallach said.

Approximately half of GeoEye-2’s capacity was scheduled to be allocated to NGA. “It leverages our investment to ensure that it has needed imagery coverage and so it can provide greater avail-ability to end-users,” he said.

“Now the government is scaling back its funding while GeoEye has already committed considerable resources to fulfilling its con-tractual obligation,” Wallach remarked. “This sends a signal to the investment community that structuring contracts in this manner may be too risky, making members unwilling to invest in innova-tion that may not be fully funded. Companies may no longer com-mit their resources to develop advanced technologies that serve both government and commercial customers.”

Furthermore, reducing funding means there will be reduced availability of unclassified imagery. This would limit the avail-ability of imagery that can be shared with allies and coalition partners.

“Any reduction in capacity would also impact private indus-try’s overall cost to the government,” Wallach added. “As the

largest purchaser of imagery, the government commits to huge volumes of data allowing GeoEye to provide it at a significant discount.”

From ITT Exelis’ perspective, a significant cut to EnhancedView would undo much of the progress made by ODNI and DoD in col-lectively developing and introducing the 2+2 satellite imaging architecture—an effort that included robust involvement from

commercial data providers.“This would introduce, once

again, huge uncertainty into the U.S. overhead imagery calculus,” remarked Rob Mitrevski, vice pres-ident and general manager, inte-grated geospatial sensing systems and environmental intelligence, ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems.

ITT Exelis has been a major sup-plier to GeoEye and DigitalGlobe since IKONOS launched in 1999 and QuickBird launched in 2001.

“Any decrement in their busi-ness, which might dampen their desire to replenish their constel-lations, would presumably impact our business as well,” he said. “This uncertainty is particularly trouble-some to our second- and third-tier vendors.”

Another aspect, he pointed out, is the message this proposed cut sends to those in industry who might be contemplating coming forth with service level agreement (SLA) solu-tions for the government.

“We all recognize programs will have to be cut, but the con-sequences of backing away from commitments to commercial vendors for programs requiring long-lead investment are not insig-nificant,” Mitrevski said. “If the government hopes to embrace SLAs as a path to improved acquisition, there has to be confidence the government will be an enduring customer.”

Industry observers say they continue to receive what they view as conflicting messages from the Obama administration regarding its position on EnhancedView.

In announcing the new U.S. defense strategy earlier this year, for example, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta mentioned that the U.S. government plans to protect and, in some cases, increase investments in intelligence and surveillance in space.

“President Obama also mentioned that we need to rebuild readiness in areas that were deemphasized over the past decade,” stressed Scott. “Such statements support the geospatial commu-nity and show how deeply commercial satellite imagery is embed-ded in our defense and intelligence strategies.”

The jury is still out while NGA awaits the outcome of the White House-directed study evaluating EnhancedView requirements.

Meanwhile, the threat of budget cuts appears to be sharpening the competitive pressures on DigitalGlobe and GeoEye.

Scott emphasized: “Any cut of significant size means that rela-tive value will become important in the decision of which commer-cial data provider is affected by the cuts.”

Walter Scott

Rob Mitrevski


Further, he claimed, GeoEye-2 doesn’t achieve tech-nological parity with DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-2, which has been on orbit since 2009.

“Then, with the launch of WorldView-3 planned for mid-2014 (our third satellite with control moment gyros), we will only further widen our lead,” Scott added. “And, WorldView-3 outperforms GeoEye-2 substantially. It has higher resolution, greater capacity and offers eight spectral bands instead of four.”

DigitalGlobe already has three satellites on orbit, capturing what five times more imagery than GeoEye using the most common collection mode, the com-pany said.

“In fact, DigitalGlobe collects and makes avail-able roughly 75 percent of the entire worldwide sup-ply of half-meter satellite imagery today,” said Scott. “This is because for years our satellite fleet, including WorldView-1 and WorldView-2, has had the technologi-cal capabilities (control moment gyros) that GeoEye will only introduce when and if GeoEye-2 becomes opera-tional in late 2013.”

year oF ProGress

It’s important to note that last year, companies involved in satellite imaging and other technologies made great progress in their work to provide the best overhead imagery available to support a wide range of government missions.

DigitalGlobe released two new services and received an extended award contract with the government, several new customer partner-ships, and successful critical design reviews for WorldView-3 and the Enhanced View program.

Additionally, DigitalGlobe’s constellation of satellites and expert analysts from DigitalGlobe’s Analysis Center discovered and/or pub-licly shared groundbreaking images, such as of a Chinese aircraft carrier, Sudan warfare and natural disasters worldwide.

During GEOINT 2011 last fall, DigitalGlobe launched two new geospatial intelligence services to enable faster response, smarter decisions and effective management during a crisis.

One of these new services, FirstWatch, provides customers with a rapid imagery-based analysis during a crisis to help responders see the magnitude and scope of a disaster before taking course of action, Scott said.

DigitalGlobe’s new services assisted in more than 50 events worldwide in 2011, including the earthquake in Japan, Hurricane Irene and Midwest flooding in the U.S.

Last October, DigitalGlobe also won the U.S. government value-added services contract, the Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (EGD), which is valued at up to $38 million. “The EGD award further exem-plifies DigitalGlobe’s long and successful track record of execution with the NGA,” Scott remarked.

The contract significantly expands DigitalGlobe’s original Rapid Delivery of Online Geospatial Intelligence (RDOG) to include more than 10 countries.

“RDOG services have expanded beyond the U.S. government to first responders and other customers,” Scott pointed out. “DigitalGlobe now has the opportunity to give warfighters quick access to relevant imagery and information about their surround-ings. This is a significant achievement for DigitalGlobe, as it

validates our current alignment with the NGA and Director Letitia Long’s vision for increasing on-demand geospatial intelligence by putting the power in the hands of end users faster.”

In September, before winning the government value-added award, DigitalGlobe activated its fourth new remote ground termi-nal (RGT) in 2011, completing the first phase of the RGT expansion initiative. The initiative began in 2010 and calls for the conduction and activation of seven new RGTs by mid-2012, providing signifi-cant increases in the frequency and speed at which DigitalGlobe can deliver refreshed imagery to customers at a larger number of regions worldwide.

“The additional RGTs allow as much total capacity and refresh capability as if DigitalGlobe had launched a new satellite,” Scott said.

Jeff Dierks, WV-3 program manager for Ball Aerospace, added that another significant accomplishment in 2011 was DigitalGlobe’s successful critical design review (CDR) for WorldView-3 in a joint collaboration with Ball Aerospace.

“The build of WorldView-3 kicked off in September 2010, and the successful CDR was held last August, including representatives from Ball Aerospace, NGA and instrument manufacturer ITT,” Dierks said. “This keeps WorldView-3 on schedule for a planned launch of mid-2014.”

In December, DigitalGlobe confirmed a partnership with Vizrt, enabling designers to quickly find, preview and add DigitalGlobe imagery in their broadcast graphics and maps. The subscription-based service called “DigitalGlobe Online” is now available for design teams to integrate the high-quality satellite and aerial imagery in their interactive, touch-screen graphics.

“Subscribers have access to newly captured imagery of crisis events worldwide, allowing production teams to quickly monitor and begin using images of high-risk events as they unfold,” Scott said.

Additionally, last December, DigitalGlobe successfully completed the final phase of the EnhancedView CDR for NGA.

DigitalGlobe recently released a 50cm resolution natural color image of the North Korean launch site at Tongchang-ri taken in late March. [Photo courtesy of DigitalGlobe]


“DigitalGlobe has passed every milestone for the EnhancedView program on schedule,” Scott expounded. “The latest successful CDR of the EnhancedView program shows DigitalGlobe’s commitment to cost-effectively meeting the needs of the NGA as well as the nation’s soldiers, first responders, relief workers and coalition partners.”

onlIne aCCess

GeoEye, meanwhile, secured new contracts, awards and recogni-tion for its current work and new products in 2011.

In July, GeoEye unveiled a new EnhancedView Web Hosting Service powered by GeoEye’s online access platform, EyeQ. The system supports users across the National System for Geospatial-Intelligence and allows users to access new imagery online within hours of collection.

“This was part of our continued effort to provide images to end-users in the field as soon as they need it,” said Wallach. “This system helps thousands plan missions and respond to disasters.”

More recently, in late January 2012, GeoEye reached a signifi-cant milestone in the EnhancedView program by completing the system critical design review, the last of four critical design reviews in its EnhancedView program. This includes the development of the GeoEye-2 (GE-2) satellite and upgraded ground systems.

“Our program is on budget and on schedule for an early 2013 launch of GE-2,” Wallach reported.

Last summer, GeoEye launched a GeoEye Image Pack for Esri enterprise licensing agreement (ELA) customers that will improve access for small municipal and county governments, public safety agencies and utilities. The ELAs are a low-cost way for smaller gov-ernments to procure high resolution imagery that can help them with responsibilities such as urban planning, economic development and public works.

“We are also very excited about our partnership with ScanEx Research and Development Center, to provide millions of square kilometers of high-resolution satellite imagery to the Russian Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography,” Wallach added. “The agreement will help provide timely geospatial information and add data layers to help the Russian government manage its vast landscape.”

Last fall, GeoEye signed a multi-year enterprise agreement with Google to license access to Google Earth Builder. The agreement is part of GeoEye’s investment to increase online access to satellite imagery and will increase access to GeoEye’s broader archive and recent new collections.

teChnoloGy advanCes

According to Mitrevski, ITT Exelis has made great headway not only with sensors, optics and manufacturing, but also in the areas of image processing, exploitation and dissemination for still imagery, wide area surveillance imagery and full motion video.

“This allows us to bring forward solutions that provide informa-tion and intelligence to a broad range of customers,” Mitrevski com-mented. “At ITT Exelis, we have also leveraged our space heritage to enable a very successful airborne persistence surveillance program for the Air Force called Gorgon Stare. We are learning ways to lever-age those lessons for our space oriented customers as well.”

In addition, ITT Exelis continues to develop its strong posi-tions in airborne ISR. These include recent contract wins, such as

an award to supply the Army with the Federated Embedded Intel-Server for Collaborative Operations ISR processing system, which rapidly transmits raw sensor imagery and metadata from manned or unmanned aircraft.

“We also launched new products like our Jagwire solution, which provides users with one seamless tool for the processing, search, dis-covery, dissemination and exploitation of still imagery, wide-area motion imagery and full motion video,” he added.

ITT Exelis continues to make excellent progress on the imag-ing payloads that will collect imagery to support the EnhancedView program.

“The imaging payload for GeoEye-2, which includes a telescope, sensor subsystem and outer barrel assembly, will be completed in spring 2012,” Mitrevski reported.

The outer barrel and telescope are nearing completion and the sensor subsystem is in testing. The imaging payload for WorldView-3, which includes a telescope and sensor subsystem, will be delivered in summer 2013. Many electrical assemblies have been completed, the focal plane is being constructed, and the primary mirror and other

optics have been completed. The Lockheed Martin team,

which is developing GeoEye-2, achieved several significant mile-stones last year, including an early completion of the space systems crit-ical design review and the start of vehicle integration in June.

“The two-day CDR, conducted by Lockheed Martin and GeoEye at our Sunnyvale, Calif., facility, was com-pleted only seven months after the program’s preliminary design review

in November 2010,” said Allen Anderson, Lockheed Martin Space Systems GeoEye-2 program director.

The CDR phase included a series of detailed examinations of the satellite’s technical design as well as the command and con-trol element of the ground system, leading up to the final CDR in June. These reviews validated the detailed design of the spacecraft and command and control portion of the ground system to ensure it met all program requirements for GeoEye’s commercial and gov-ernment users.

“The successful completion of the final space systems CDR marked the program’s official transition from development to pro-duction,” Anderson said.

In October 2011, Lockheed Martin began vehicle integration of GeoEye-2 with the delivery of the fully integrated propulsion sys-tem from Lockheed Martin’s Propulsion Manufacturing Center in Stennis, Miss., to Lockheed Martin’s Sunnyvale facilities.

The start of vehicle integration marked the on-schedule progress of installation and testing of satellite components and subsystems over the next several months in preparation for the delivery of ITT’s high-resolution imaging payload in the second quarter of 2012.

“Lockheed Martin is on track to support the GeoEye-2 launch during the half quarter of 2013,” Anderson revealed. O



Allen Anderson


Search and Referencing Platform Software Upgraded

Qbase, a provider of information technology, text analytics and geographic search solutions, has announced the launch of the expanded Geographic Search and Referencing Platform (GSRP) Software Version 4.6.0 for its flagship Qbase MetaCarta product line. With Version 4.6.0, Qbase delivers significant upgrades to its geo-referencing platform, highlighted by a feature-rich GSRP administrative portal that provides system administrators with easy-to-use reporting, crawler management, configuration controls and custom gazet-

teer editor functionality. In addition, version 4.6.0 also offers Qbase MetaCarta users flexible data format configuration options, significant increases to the number of place names recognized by the MetaCarta Base Geographic Data Module, improvements to its core natural language processing engine, and increased geotagging capabili-ties for unstructured documents that deliver customers streamlined and expedited loca-tion-based searches.

Camille Sweger;[email protected]

Data Software Aids Army Searches for Geospatial Information

The Army has procured BAE Systems’ commercial data management software, GXP Xplorer, to reduce the efforts required to rapidly search for and retrieve geospa-tial data from various legacy reposito-ries. Under the terms of the contract, the Distributed Common Ground System-Army Enabled Common Ground Station will deploy 50 GXP Xplorer enterprise server licenses starting in mid-2012. Soldiers across multiple Army installations will be able to easily locate current and historical data collections saved on share drives, servers and in personal files, which

is vital to military users who rotate in and out of operating units. Army brigade combat teams will use GXP Xplorer to identify and catalog images, maps, terrain, features, videos and documents of interest on local desktops or across an enterprise. GXP Xplorer supports the Army’s tran-sition from legacy data library systems to an interoperable resource that scales from mobile devices, ruggedized laptops, enterprise servers and virtualized environ-ments.

Despina Froumis;[email protected]

Software Speeds Processing of Aerial

WorkflowsPCI Geomatics has the announced release of its

GeoImaging Accelerator Aerial (GXL-Aerial) version 2.1, the latest version of the company’s high-speed, high-volume multi CPU/GPU distributed processing software for aerial workflows. Following feedback from its user base, PCI has made numerous improvements to the GXL, including increases in accuracy and speed, advanced automation, and an enhanced user experi-ence. GXL Aerial v2.1 also adds support for the DMC camera format, providing wider usability and flexibility. GXL Aerial v2.1 allows users to orthorectify and mosaic thousands of aerial images per day through the power of distributed processing that leverages multi-core CPUs and GPUs. This technology results in significantly increased throughput, lower production costs and reduced reliance on outsourcing.

Kevin R. Jones;[email protected]

Geostationary Lightning Mapper to Aid

in Storm Prediction

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R Series Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) spaceflight instrument engineering development unit has completed optical-electronic lightning sensitivity testing at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., and showed excellent perfor-mance. System gain, linearity, and dynamic range all exceeded specifications. Within the next few months, the GLM Engineering Development Unit will complete thermal and thermal-vacuum testing. The heart of the GLM instrument is a high speed (500 frames per second), 1.8 megapixel focal plane, integrated with low-noise electronics and specialized optics to detect weak lightning signals even against bright, sunlit cloud backgrounds. GLM is a new GOES capability. It is a near-infrared instru-ment that maps total lightning (cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground) over the Americas and adjacent oceans to provide improved tornado warning lead time and early indication of storm intensification and severe weather. Changes in cloud-to-cloud lightning are related to the updraft strength in a thunderstorm.

Buddy [email protected]

App Turns Mobile Phones Into GPS Recorders

MediaMapper Mobile (MMM) from Red Hen Systems is an Android-based app for hand-held GPS integrated photos. Compatible with Google Earth and Blue 2CAN devices, the app turns a mobile phone into a handheld GPS device and geotagging/audio recorder that does work faster and more efficiently than ever. On-the-ground first responders, defense experts and others can have GPS multimedia tech-nology with real-time data transfer capabilities in the palm of their hands. The MMM app is a

COTS field device that geotags photos taken in the field using external or internal GPS for fast capture and storage to Android devices 2.3 and above. It track logs the data in NMEA and GPX formats. The Android’s positional information is associated with photos, features of interest and voice annotations, which creates a comprehen-sive data collection device that assures accuracy during field missions. Users can geotag media collected from “detached” video/still cameras in the field using MediaGeotagger software.


INDUSTRY RASTER

An enhanced version of the ICS-8580 rugged high definition video compression XMC module from GE Intelligent Platforms was designed in response to the growing use of video in a broad range of defense appli-cations. It allows very high quality moving images to be captured, transmitted and stored at very high speed with very low latency and with minimal consumption of precious bandwidth or disk space. As such, it can make a significant contribution to superior decision making and improved troop safety. The ICS-8580 can capture

video inputs and archive or stream them over Ethernet, managing multiple streams and performing capture, manipulation, conversion, compression, storage, decom-pression and video display. Its rugged XMC form factor means that it is compact, lightweight and consumes little power, enabling it to be easily deployed in systems destined for deployment in harsh environments that are constrained by size, weight and power.

Ian McMurray;[email protected]

Geospatial Software

Offers Collaboration Capabilities

TerraGo Technologies has intro-duced significant new capabilities with its new v.6 software release. The new v.6 software offers three unprec-edented collaboration capabilities. First, all TerraGo GeoPDF applications produced by Publisher for ArcGIS and Composer for Adobe Acrobat v.6 soft-ware are now automatically enabled for dynamic updates and sharing by anyone, anywhere using TerraGo Toolbar and Adobe Reader. Secondly, with no-cost TerraGo Toolbar v.6, essential TerraGo functionality can be used with any conventional geospatial PDF, making Toolbar the new application of choice for viewing and interacting with georeferenced PDF maps and imagery from a wide range of sources. In addition, Toolbar and Composer v.6 software enables users to easily create their own simple geoforms for faster field data collection and permits attachment of unstructured georeferenced data including audio, photos and video to specific locations or objects for later distribution and consolidation. In addition, Publisher v.6 supports auto-mated GeoPDF map production using data-driven pages in Esri ArcGIS.

John Deaver;[email protected]

Video Compression Module Designed for Defense

Navigation Payloads Ordered for GPS III Space Vehicles

ITT Exelis has been awarded a $32 million contract by Lockheed Martin to build the naviga-tion payloads for Global Positioning System III space vehicles three and four. Exelis announced last December that it had successfully integrated and performed the initial power up of the full-size payload prototype known as GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed Navigation Payload Element. Exelis was selected along with Lockheed Martin in 2008 by the Air Force to build the next-generation GPS III program. The GPS III team is led by the Global Positioning Systems Directorate at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Scheduled for first launch in 2014, GPS III satellites will deliver significant improvements compared with current GPS space vehicles. The GPS III program will affordably replace aging GPS satellites while improving capability to

meet the evolving needs of military, commercial and civilian users world-wide. GPS III satellites will deliver better accuracy and improved anti-jamming power while enhancing the spacecraft’s design life and adding a new civil signal designed to be interop-erable with international global navi-gation satellite systems.

Irene Lockwood;[email protected]


Compiled by KMi Media Group staff

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314-63265_ISGS_Capabilities_Dev.indd 1 3/30/12 4:27 PM

Air Force General Bruce Carlson (Ret.) was appointed the 17th director of the National Reconnaissance Office (DNRO) on June 12, 2009. Prior to his appointment, after retiring from the Air Force in January 2009, he served on the board of directors of EADS North America. The DNRO provides direction, guidance and supervision over all matters pertaining to the NRO and executes other authori-ties specifically delegated by the secretary of defense or director of national intelligence.

Carlson began his military career as a commissioned officer in 1971 after graduating with distinction from the Air Force ROTC pro-gram at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. He is a command pilot with more than 3,500 flying hours in 10 different aircraft and saw combat as a forward air controller in the OV-10 Bronco. His various flying assignments included commanding the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman AFB, N.M., the Air Force’s first stealth fighter wing.

His staff assignments included positions at Tactical Air Command, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and the offices of the Secretary of the Air Force and Secretary of Defense. He also served as the director of force structure, resources and assessment on the Joint Staff; commander, 8th Air Force, Barksdale AFB, La.; and joint functional component commander for space and global strike, Strategic Command, Offutt AFB, Neb.

Carlson also served as commander, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, which is responsible for development, testing, acquisition and sustainment of Air Force weapons systems. In that role, he had responsibility for 74,000 people and $59 billion annually.

Carlson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a Master of Arts degree from Webster University.

Carlson was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: We spoke last in the spring of 2010. How would you assess the performance of NRO in the past two years?

A: I’m very pleased. We’ve demonstrated that we haven’t lost the rec-ipe for building, launching and operating the intelligence communi-ty’s satellites and intelligence systems. We’ve demonstrated that we know how to work and partner with industry. We had a successful launch campaign last year, the busiest in 25 years, and we’re about to execute another one. We’ve had three clean financial audits in a row—something no other major agency in the IC or Department of Defense

has achieved. Our financial systems account for the money we spend, and we can tell Congress and the American people with assurance that we’re not only using their money wisely, but prudently as well.

Probably the biggest thing to me is that we have about a dozen and a half major system acquisitions, and every one of them is “in the green” in accordance with the Director of National Intelligence’s crite-ria. That means they are on cost and on budget for time and delivery. In fact, many of our systems are running ahead of schedule.

Q: Has the agency fully overcome the image problems, merited or not, resulting from some unsuccessful programs of the recent past?

A: We’ve demonstrated that we’re the leading agency in this country to produce and operate innovative new overhead systems to collect intelligence. Our operators, leaders, acquisition professionals, pro-gram managers and the whole staff have contributed to that, and they feel good about it. I make it a point to get out of my office and walk the halls of the NRO. During these rounds I sense that people genuinely and generally feel good about working here, enjoy it, and are excited about our mission and how we’re getting it done. Our halls have sev-eral banners up about our current launch campaign, which has cre-ated some buzz. During the 50th anniversary and other events,

General Bruce Carlson (Ret.)Director

National Reconnaissance Office


Launch LeaderProducing and Operating Innovative Overhead Intelligence

Q&AQ&A

whether or not associated with the anniversary, and in producing things to get six launches off in seven months, everyone felt genuinely good. When you combine that with the clean audits and the fact that all of our major system acquisitions are on cost and on time, people have a real feeling of mission accomplishment. That radiates to those around us. There are probably still some non-believers, but that’s to be expected. We live in a time when it is popular to be a little cynical, so I can understand that, but I think we’ve polished our image, and most of Washington and the people in the country who know some-thing about us, feel pretty good about us.

Q: Can you tell us more about the ambitious launch initiative con-ducted during that time, and what it achieved?

A: Last year’s was the most aggressive in 25 years, so we had to take work out of the process as we were doing it. That’s a complex and dif-ficult thing to do. We had to scrunch a 180-day process down to 90 days. That took an incredible amount of cooperation and integration between the NRO directorates. They had never had to do that before, because each had gone to Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg Air Force Base and launched their rocket, and that was kind of the end of it. But during this campaign, when we had to squeeze that much work into such a short time, each location had to know what the other was doing, so that they could work together. Taking 90 days out of a 180-day process as we were accomplishing it is one of the most remarkable things that has been done within this organization in a long time. It demonstrated to the organization and others how capable we are of dealing with very complex problems.

As we were marching toward each of those launches, we had some complex technical problems—not so much with the satellite, but in some cases with each of the rockets, which is to be expected. We had some risks on every launch, and it’s managing that risk that is cru-cial. We never launched unless we had the risk down to medium-low. We were able to work through each of the technical issues and come out on top.

The other thing we did was to put new technologies into space, and new phenomenologies that look and listen to the earth in differ-ent ways. We decreased the average age of the constellation by two years. So we think we were fairly successful, and we’re going to start again this summer with four more launches in five months. The les-sons we’ve learned in the past have served us well. For example, one of the systems that we had was going through its first launch. It took us roughly 1,000 days to do the integration and testing of that vehi-cle. This year we’re doing that again, but in about 300 days. That’s a remarkable learning curve, when you can come down from 1,000 days to 300. I feel very good about our opportunity to succeed this year, and that we did the right things last year.

Q: How do you see the role of NRO changing as a result of the defense strategic guidance issued by the Obama administration early this year?

A: The basics are still the same—we’re going to launch rockets with satellites on them, and collect signals and images, and do long-haul communications. What has changed is that, because the focus of that strategy is in a different part of the world, we are the people who hold the strategic high ground for our country. The importance of the overhead constellation will continue to grow and provide images that can be passed back and forth, warn of missile attack, keep the

president informed about nuclear forces, support disaster relief if required, and of course, help guide our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines as they fight in whatever conflicts we have in the future. We also have a very important indications and warning mission, and that is what we can do that no other systems can. Also, in denied areas, we are the only access that this nation has. The strategy, as recently defined, is one that supports a healthy, robust overhead constellation, which we’re getting to.

Q: What is your overall strategy for responding to tighter budget conditions in the future?

A: We got a bit of a jump on that, in that we created a process called Integrated Architecture and Investment Planning [IAIP] process a couple of years ago, because we thought that the budgets were on a downward slope, and we didn’t know how far they would go. Basically, IAIP examines mission and intelligence needs, identifies key capa-bility needs or gaps, and then allows us to focus investments on the right priorities and capabilities. So we have already done some belt-tightening at NRO. For example, we have put all of our ground sys-tems acquisition under one organization, which before were spread under different directorates and offices. We have taken some reduc-tions in personnel, and we have worked very hard to present alter-natives for the future that ultimately will save us money. We have continued to invest, despite the slope of our budgets, and we have kept

The Red Dot anti-IED program warns warfighters in Afghanistan if an area they are approaching shows signs of IED activity. [Photo courtesy of DoD]


the investment in science and technology not just steady, but grow-ing. We’re already harvesting some of the technologies that are com-ing out of that science and technology pool and putting them on our main systems. In fact, in one case, this technology harvest has given us the option of even forgoing one satellite. That gets rid of the costs of construction and launch.

We’ve also looked at new capabilities and new ways of collecting intelligence to match what we consider to be new and evolving tar-gets. We continue to direct systems toward what I call multi-intel-ligence integration, which is the ability to process data much faster than we did just two or three years ago. Because we can process so much better than we did before, we believe there are ways we can line up indications and warnings from signals intelligence, for example, with those that are coming in imagery. Then we can hand the analyst an improved product, so the analyst doesn’t have to spend time look-ing through databases to find the “tippers.” Instead, he gets handed those, and then does the real work of an analyst, which is to decide what those things mean. Our goal is to provide our biggest custom-ers—NSA and NGA—with better and faster data. The technologies are arriving that will soon enable us to do that, and what we’re find-ing is that if we invest in those technologies, we can also get by with less power and cooling and fewer racks of equipment.

We’re also looking at improving efficiencies at our headquarters and the rest of our sites. We think that there are ways we can con-tract better and more efficiently for common services, and we’re work-ing hard on that. Finally, we have been very upfront and direct with our industry partners, and they have listened. We told them we want strategic, integrated solutions, not stovepiped solutions, and we have seen industry work together to provide us with those things. We want lighter weight, scalable solutions and affordable technologies, and we’ve seen those come. By combining internal efficiencies, challenges to industry, investments in science and technology, and looking for more effective ways to do things at the ground sites and at headquar-ters, we’re doing about as much as we can right now. I believe that series of processes allowed us to pay about 30 percent of the entire IC’s FY13 bill. We’re one of 16 agencies, and we paid about twice as much as anyone else. We think we’re doing well in contributing to the down-sizing of the defense and intelligence apparatus.

Q: How would you assess the ability of NRO to provide space-based ISR for the warfighter? Are people in the field getting what they need?

A: First, let me address the second question, about whether people are getting what they need. We think they are, and we’ve invested in field representatives in all the combatant commands, as well as sev-eral other places across the country and world. We have picked very capable officers to do that, and some selectively chosen contractors, who have a broad-based knowledge of what we do in NRO and how we do it. They go out with two things in mind. First, NRO does the best space-based reconnaissance in the world. Second, we solve com-plex and difficult technical problems. If you have an intelligence issue, then we’re the ones to call, because we look into what the other intel-ligence agencies do, and then because of our long-haul communica-tions capability and the fact that we have systems overhead, we look for ways to provide data directly to the warfighter whenever possible. Sometimes, that takes a waiver from one of our mission partners, but they’ve always been agreeable to that as long as they see a valid mis-sion need.

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Second, our systems are incredibly adaptable. In some cases these systems were put up decades ago. As you can imagine, some-thing that’s 25 years old is going to give you “ones and zeroes” that don’t look the same as those that are coming down today. But we have found ways to take something that was built two or three decades ago, had a three-year life expectancy, and was built to moni-tor Soviet communications, for example. Today, the system is help-ing to locate sensitive signals in the combat area of responsibility, and is not only finding them, but also helping us to precisely geolocate them. That has been another big benefit we offer.

In addition, there are our joint collaboration cells. We have these cells at our ground sites. They work real-time problems every day with the warfighters. When a unit from CONUS is going to deploy to the AOR, we invite their senior leaders and some of their operational intelligence people to come to our ground sites and look at what we can provide. We essentially give them a 911 number to call, and we’ve had a number of situations where they do call. We had a downed helicopter in Afghanistan, and the people reported they knew about where they were, but needed help about which way to go to get out of there. We could help them, and told them how to do it. Not only that, to disadvantaged users like that, if we know where they are and what they want, we can then compress information, just like you do in a PDF file, and send it. It’s a little grainy, but it’s what they need, and it’s at the end of the pipe, where normally they wouldn’t get anything at all. Between the collaboration cells, our field reps and our adapt-able overhead systems, I think we’re able not only to provide current

warfighters with what they need, but also to look into the future and see what they will need under the new national strategy.

Q: What can you tell readers about the Red Dot anti-IED program operating in Afghanistan?

A: We worked on fielding a system that takes a number of indications and warning capabilities we receive, combines them and sends them to someone in a HMMWV in an operational area that they have told us they want defined. It places a red dot on their map, indicating that a particular area ahead is one of concern: We have indications and warnings that there might be something there. So he then has the option of turning back, going around or sending someone in to look at it, instead of going forward and having something disastrous hap-pen. It’s been a big success and it’s in high demand. We are delighted to be able to provide it, and we’re looking for ways to improve it, as is true with everything we do.

Q: What do you see as the future of next generation sensing systems?

A: We want to have the best technology we can put up in orbit, but we also want to do it with a risk that we can manage. There are some things that we would really like to do, but they just aren’t ready. We have taken very positive steps to make sure that we’re investing in the right technologies to put on orbit. What we’ve tried to do is to make the next generation a blend of things that already work, which we don’t need to improve from the last generation, and then to spend our money on the “front end”—the business end of our satellite sys-tems. If you were talking about an airplane, it would be the gun or missile—that’s what we’re focusing on. We’re putting some new-gen-eration sensing technology on each of our vehicles, and in the back we’re putting power, cooling and other systems that may be legacy equipment. The new technology we added enables us to do some things we’ve never done before.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: We’re going to make a lot of headway in the next three to four years with integrated data processing. In just a few years, we’re going to be able to give the analytical community, warfighters and those monitoring national security treaties much higher quality data. We’ll do that with some of the same sensors, although we’ll continue to upgrade them as we launch. We’re not going to be able to change the constellation overnight. So there is going to be a lot of legacy equip-ment up there. However, just because of the new ways we process information, we’re going to be a lot better than in the past and we’re going to do it for less money, as we’ve already demonstrated.

As we go forward, we are evaluating a series of alternate constel-lations. We believe that if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. We also believe there are alternative ways to collect signals intelligence and imagery that make the constellation more resilient, adaptable and survivable, and pro-vide more flexibility than today. We’re looking at some radical ideas. It’s only because of a series of technologies that have come together, in computation, navigation and other things, and the innovative spirit of the talented men and women of NRO that we’re able to look at alternative ways of doing business. It’s truly an exciting time for NRO. O

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ComPanIes that oFFer synthetIC aPerture radar data are havInG a major ImPaCt on the world oF GeosPatIal IntellIGenCe.

(Editor’s Note: For the past year, the Commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite Working Group (CSARS WG), formed by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and its members, has been working to explain the capabilities and advantages of space-based SAR as well as to provide hands-on learning and training for users. GIF recently asked members of the group, including Ian McLeod, director, Maritime Defense and Security Business Unit, MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), the commercial provider of RADARSAT-1 data and operator of RADARSAT-MDA, and Andreas Kern, director, business development and sales, Infoterra, GEO-Information Services, Astrium Services, commercial operator of TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X, to reflect on some of the roles of their industry in geospatial intelligence and the key issues it faces. Following are their responses.)

Ian McLeod Andreas Kern

Q: How do you respond to people wHo say tHat sar data and imagery are pretty mucH tHe same? in wHat ways is sar data superior to otHer forms?

Kern: Indeed, it is a widespread misconception to lump

together SAR data and imagery. However, I would also not nec-

essarily speak about a superiority of SAR data. To fully exploit

each data type, the user has to understand the advantages and

limitation of each system. First and foremost, SAR data over-

comes the cloud and lighting issues often faced by optical sys-

tems. On the other hand, the black-and-white SAR data is not as

easily and intuitively interpretable. Users need a sound knowl-

edge and experience to work with SAR data. But with these skills

in place, SAR data is much more than meets the eye.

SAR is an active sensor illuminating the Earth’s surface with

radar pulses and recording the backscatter of the signals. This

interaction with the surface of the imaged target provides infor-

mation about the physical characteristics of the surface, such as

surface roughness, geometric structure and orientation, allow-

ing unique properties of the target to be revealed. Furthermore,

the coherent nature of SAR enables the user to process images

of subsequent satellite passes for interferometric analyses,

uncovering minimal vertical movements of the Earth’s surface

for example.

The main difference between SAR data and imagery is that

the SAR detected data is only one way of utilization. Much more

interesting and content- rich is to use SAR data to extract fur-

ther information like ground control points, which we can derive

from TerraSAR-X data with an accuracy of up to 1 meter, or digi-

tal elevation models that are processed from stereo data pairs by

applying radargrammetry techniques.

While being a valuable data source in its own right, space-

borne SAR provides additional benefit when being used in com-

bination with EO imagery— revealing unique information that is

not visible in each separate image. At Astrium, we have access to

a wide range of data and imagery from different sensors and with

different resolutions. By combining these different data sources,

we can significantly enhance image analysis, change detection

or monitoring applications—when the full potential of different

technology that we have at our disposal is exploited.

McLeod: I always point out that SAR is highly complementary

to optical imagery. The way SAR imaging works is fundamen-

tally different from optical imaging, so it can give you a different

perspective on the same area of the earth. An optical image is

essentially a photograph of the ground that uses sunlight for illu-

mination. This is very intuitive and easy to understand, since it

looks exactly how our eyes would perceive the scene.

SAR, on the other hand, is an active sensor, meaning that it

transmits microwave energy to the ground and then measures

the energy reflected back. So what we call a SAR image is really

Perspectives on Commercial SAR

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Perspectives on Commercial SARa map of microwave energy reflections. This leads to some inter-

esting properties. For example, since we are using microwaves,

we can penetrate cloud cover and create images even in dark-

ness. We can also very precisely control the characteristics of

the microwave energy we use to illuminate a scene, and very pre-

cisely measure what is reflected back. This allows us to detect

very small changes in the returned signal each time we view an

area. These small changes can reveal things about the surface

that cannot be detected in an optical image. For example, they

may tell you if the ground has subsided even a few millimeters

since the satellite last viewed it, or if a particular route through

the desert has been disturbed since the last viewing. This ability

to extract different information from the SAR image and to “see”

a site even through cloud cover makes SAR very complementary

to optical imagery.

Q: How would you assess tHe prospects for growing tHe sar market outside tHe government and intelli-gence fields?

McLeod: From our perspective, the prospects are extremely

good and growing rapidly. Let me give you some examples:

Arctic Operations. SAR is the “go to” sensor for ice moni-

toring because it can image through clouds and darkness and

cover extremely wide areas. As it turns out, you can use the SAR

returns to actually determine the types of ice. The RADARSAT-2

satellite is particularly well suited for ice monitoring due to its

very wide swaths, dual polarizations and C-band frequency.

The latter points are technical characteristics of the radar that

make it most sensitive to particular ice characteristics. With

access to the polar regions increasing, this application is becom-

ing increasingly important to resource companies and shipping

companies, not to mention the normal government ice-charting

agencies.

Ship Monitoring. Similarly, SAR is excellent at ship detec-

tion, and 90 percent of the world’s trade happens by ocean. The

really large imaging areas of the SAR sensor let you sweep out

thousands of square kilometers with a single pass in any cloud

conditions. The best part is that you detect ships regardless of

whether or not they want to be detected, which makes it very

valuable to maritime security agencies that want to find those

ships that are not following the rules. Combatting illegal fish-

ing and cueing maritime patrol assets are two common uses. In

Canada, a program called Polar Epsilon uses RADARSAT to rou-

tinely sweep Canadian waters to detect ships approaching or

leaving Canada, delivering ship reports only a few minutes after

imaging.

Oil on water. SAR is also very good at detecting oil on water.

The RADARSAT satellites were used extensively in the response

to the Deep Water Horizon incident because they gave all-

weather, wide-area views of the spill that allowed responders to

best allocate assets. However, we are also seeing national and

international oil companies use satellite SAR for monitoring their

offshore platforms and underwater pipelines for indications of

oil on water in the area. This information is used to help identify

the source and extent of the oil and provides key information

that can help with deploying response teams. Finally, SAR satel-

lites are helping protect the environment by monitoring coastal

approaches for illegal bilge dumping. Programs in Europe and

Canada routinely use the RADARSAT satellites for this purpose.

Monitoring ground deformation. Lastly, I mentioned earlier

that satellite SAR can be used to detect very small changes in

ground deformation. As it turns out, there can be many causes

of ground deformation, such as oil and gas extraction or ground

water depletion. Major oil and gas companies are now routinely

using satellite SAR to monitor ground deformation at oil fields

as a means of optimizing production and reducing the risks of

certain types of extraction techniques. Some municipalities are

using satellite SAR to detect areas of small subsidence before

major failures occur. All of this can be done from 800 kilometers

above the earth, through cloud cover.

Kern: We see very good developments for market potential

outside the government and intelligence fields. Novel applica-

tions enabled by SAR technology open up opportunities in many

different industries.

Oil and gas companies are increasingly recognizing the

potential of using SAR imagery to monitor their production. We

are also working with engineering companies, for example by

deriving vertical surface movement information from TerraSAR-X

data to help them ensure safe operations, for instance for air-

ports or large construction projects.

However, there are some barriers to overcome when enter-

ing these new markets; the lack of experience and knowledge

of SAR capabilities is limiting the update of the new technology.

Additionally, users need to develop solutions for how to incor-

porate SAR data and applications into existing processes and

work methods.

To achieve a better understanding of the potential benefits

of SAR data, we work with many companies on pilot project to

demonstrate the opportunities afforded by the SAR technology.

Jointly with the customer, we explore different solutions and help

them to complement or improve their operations by incorporating

SAR data and services.

We also have to closely understand the different potential

markets and customers. Some users are capable of more eas-

ily incorporating SAR data into their processes, while other cus-

tomer groups require more sophisticated and tailored services

and solutions to facilitate an update of the technology.

Q: wHat can your industry do to increase awareness and understanding among potential commercial sar users about wHat tHe tecHnology can do for tHem and tHe types of products tHat will best fit tHeir needs?

Kern: Ever since we started working in this market, we have

gone to great lengths to educate our customers and partners

about the potential of SAR data and SAR-based application. We

have developed several training programs of different levels and

content to educate and train the users in the SAR data interpre-

tation and application development. With the TerraSAR-X IMINT

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Manual (TIM), a comprehensive reference database, we have

also answered a need of the market to support image analysts

in the detection and identification of IMINT-relevant objects in

high-resolution SAR data. By describing and visualizing impor-

tant SAR effects, TIM helps image analysts familiar with optical

imagery to transition to SAR data analysis.

Our customer service teams are working closely with our

customers to consult them regarding optimal acquisition param-

eters, to help users tailor acquisition campaigns to their needs

and advise them on applications and solutions. The CSARS WG

is such an initiative, and it has met with a very positive resonance

in the market. The training sessions we held at various events

are highly popular and are very well received. Working closely

together with the other commercial SAR vendors certainly helps

to promote this technology in the wider community and highlight

the many unique applications enabled by SAR.

McLeod: We are focusing on three approaches: education,

better products and better tools.

Education is a broad category. It includes building general

awareness of what SAR can do and the products that best fit

customer needs, and, in some cases, in-depth hands-on train-

ing. Education is also a two-way street: While we educate users

about SAR, we are also learning about the needs of our custom-

ers and that leads to better products.

Offering better products is key. As explained earlier, you

can extract a lot of information from SAR data, but you need the

expertise and tools to do so. Not all customers have the time or

desire to become SAR experts, and frankly they shouldn’t have

to. We are working with customers to better understand the infor-

mation they actually need, and then providing that information

to them rather than forcing them to learn how to extract it them-

selves. This means the customer gets the benefit of our exper-

tise rather than needing to create their own. An example is our

work with oil and gas companies. When we monitor a production

site for deformation, we deliver a map of ground movement, not

a SAR image. It is also important to remember that SAR might

not provide the full solution needed by the customer. At MDA we

have the advantage of being a large company with deep syste-

mengineering capability, so we try to bring that to bear to create

complete solutions for customers.

However, we also have customers who want to do things

themselves. In that case, we are trying to couple education

with the provision of better tools. By better tools, I mean those

that are easier to use and can routinely and robustly extract the

required information while integrated into the customer workflow.

We don’t want customers to have to change how they work just

to realize the benefits of satellite SAR.

Q: wHat types of software for better exploitation of sar data would you like to see developed, and How can sar providers and users encourage sucH software development?

McLeod: We’d like to see tools that make the basic opera-

tions easy. Right now there are tools on the market that extract

information from SAR data, but they tend to require a fair bit

of expertise to use. We need to develop tools that support the

workflow of our customers in an easy and intuitive way. Because

the market is relatively small, we need to work closely with the

tools vendors to help them get access to the data and expertise

they need to support development. In 2012, we’ll be working with

the USGIF to expand the membership of the SAR WG. One of the

goals is to admit tools vendors and then work with them within

the context of that group to advance the tools.

Kern: The availability of sophisticated software tools is indeed

often an issue. The development of suitable packages has always

lagged behind a little, and we have started working with the soft-

ware developers very early on. In a joint development program

with Trimble, for instance, we have developed our flood mapping

tool, which we use for our own services and also provide to our

customers. At other times we use off-the-shelf software, which

we adapt to use for our change detection and surface motion

monitoring services.

Further work, however, is needed on the software develop-

ment side to enable interoperability and improve user friendli-

ness. For this, an even closer collaboration of data providers and

software development companies (be they big or small niche

firms) is needed to exploit the full potential of SAR data. This is

also particularly true in light of the next generation of satellites

soon to be launched, which will provide novel data products that

will further enhance and enlarge the range of potential applica-

tion areas.

Q: as a “disruptive tecHnology,” sar freQuently encoun-ters procedural and cultural obstacles to adoption. How can you Quicken tHe process of adoption wHile retaining tHe tecHnology’s innovative cHaracteristics?

Kern: It is true that any new innovative technology faces obsta-

cles of adoption and is often regarded as “disruptive”—espe-

cially, as with SAR, when the technology needs explanation and

expects the customer to change or re-evaluate established and

proven ways of operation.

With various initiatives, such as training, pilot projects and

close cooperative work with our customer, we try to do every-

thing to ease the way for adoption. We show our clients how best

to integrate the new technology into their operations and demon-

strate how it can complement and enhance many of their exist-

ing processes and procedures. There is a learning curve that

each user has to traverse, but we see ourselves as their partner

to make this a plain sailing for them.

McLeod: I think that answer for this goes back to my previous

comments about education, better products and better tools.

When you have something new, the best way to encourage adop-

tion is to make it easy for people to use and understand. The

technology needs to provide the information they need, when

they need it, in the form they need it. It is incumbent on us, the

satellite SAR vendors, to make the technology fit seamlessly into

our customer’s operations, not on them to have to adapt to our

technology. O

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There are more than 50 pending intelligence-related bills—many of which revolve around rule-setting for the evolving methods of intelligence gathering.

In response to recent high-profile intelligence breaches, legislation is also underway to increase the penalties for divulging classified or falsified informa-tion. In addition, legislation addressing civilian privacy concerns data is gaining momentum with the expan-sion of non-traditional intelligence gathering methods. Legislation has also been introduced to address breaches of private sector consumer information and the appro-priate response to such incidents.

There is still considerable attention on cybersecurity.

Much of the current intelligence-related issues pertain to the protection of intelligence rather than its collec-tion. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, recently intro-duced in the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is the primary bill explicitly aimed at protecting crit-ical information and national infrastructure from cyber-threats. This bill intends to create a broad sys-tem of information sharing between the public and private sector, including the clarification of jurisdic-tional boundaries. O

George Meyers is a senior vice president with Cassidy and Associates.

Bill # SponSor Committee Summary

H.r.47 rep. darrell issa (r-Calif.) House intelligence CiA Act: Provides a civil penalty of up to $10,000 against a member of the intelligence community who presents or

communicates classified material with intentionally falsified or fraudulent information to a member of Congress.

H.r.67rep. Mike rogers (r-Mich.)

House Judiciary; House intelligence

Amends the USA PAtriot improvement and reauthorization Act of 2005 to extend a provision granting roving electronic surveillance authority. Amends the intelligence reform and terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to extend a provision revising the definition of an “agent of a foreign power” to include any non-U.S. person who engages in international terrorism.

H.r. 959 rep. Mike Quigley (d-ill.)


Secure travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Program Act: directs the comptroller general to review the secretary of homeland security’s methods for tracking aliens entering and exiting the U.S. and for detecting visa overstays, and other purposes.

H.r. 1136

rep. James Langevin (d-r.i.)

House oversight and Government reform; House Homeland Security

Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act: Establishes in the Executive office of the President the National office for Cyberspace to serve as the principal office for coordinating issues relating to cyberspace.

H.r. 2168

rep. Jason Chaffetz (r-Utah)


Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act or the GPS Act: Amends the federal criminal code to prohibit intentionally intercepting or disclosing the geolocational information of another person. Exceptions for criminal investigations and official intelligence gathering.

H.r. 2463

rep. ralph Hall (r-texas)

House Homeland Security; House Science, Space and technology

Border Security technology innovation Act: directs department of Homeland Security to ensure that any federal government inter/intra-agency agreement intended for the development and transitioning of new technology contain explicit characterization of the requirements, expected use, and concept of operations for that technology.

H.r. 2749

rep. Michael Honda (d-Calif.)

House Science, Space and technology; House Energy and Commerce; House Ways and Means; House Homeland Security

Nanotechnology Advancement and New opportunities Act: directs the secretary of commerce to establish a public-private nanomanufacturing investment partnership to provide funding for research to advance nanomanufacturing of sensors and other materials related to homeland security needs.

H.r. 3140

rep. Jackie Speier (d-Calif.)

House Homeland SecurityMass transit intelligence Prioritization Act: directs the secretary of homeland security to make it a priority to create mass transit intelligence products that assist law enforcement agencies and promote more consistent and timely dissemination of mass transit security-relevant information.

H.r. 3523

rep. Mike rogers (r-Mich.)

House intelligenceCyber intelligence Sharing and Protection Act: Amends the National Security Act of 1947 to add provisions to protect intelligence and information sharing from cyber-threats and allow the intelligence community to share cyber-threat intelligence with private-sector entities.

S. 21 Sen. Harry reid (d-Nev.)

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Cyber Security and American Cyber Competitiveness Act: Enhances the security and resilience of the U.S. against cyber-attack, increases U.S. competitiveness and investments in the information technology sector to create jobs, and protects the identities and sensitive information of American citizens and businesses by incentivizing the private sector to mitigate cyber-risks to networks.

S. 413Sen. Joe Lieberman (i-Conn.)

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Cybersecurity and internet Freedom Act: declares that neither the president, the director of the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications, nor any officer or employee of the U.S. government shall have the authority to shut down the internet. Establishes in the Executive office of the President an office of Cyberspace Policy to develop a national strategy to increase the security and resiliency of cyberspace.

S. 678 Sen. Herb Kohl (d-Wis.) Senate Judiciary Economic Espionage Penalty Enhancement Act: Amends the federal criminal code to increase (from 15 to 20 years)

the term of imprisonment for economic espionage.

S. 1011 Sen. Patrick Leahy (d-Vt.) Senate Judiciary

Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act: Amends numerous provisions of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 to add geolocational information services to the category of electronic and remote computing service providers required to disclose customer or subscriber information to a governmental entity.

S. 1092Sen. thomas Carper (d-del.)

Senate Commerce, Science, & transportation

Aviation Security innovation & reform Act or Air Act: Establishes in the tSA the office of Behavior Analysis, which shall provide behavior detection training to tSA and other federal, state and local government law enforcement personnel.

S. 1469Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (d-N.Y.)

Senate Foreign relationsinternational Cybercrime reporting and Cooperation Act: directs a presidentially designated federal agency to report annually on the capacity of foreign countries to combat cybercrime, to develop action plans to improve the capacity of certain countries to combat cybercrime, and for other purposes.

George Meyers

By George MeyersINTEL UPDATE

[email protected]


Digital Mapping Sensors Upgraded with Solid State Storage

AeroMetric has upgraded two of its Z/I Imaging Digital Mapping Camera (DMC) sensors. The upgrades replace the sensors’ original hard drives with a state-of-the-art solid state system, enhancing reliability and portability. These improvements also yield greater consistency in color tone and balance across all of the company’s digital platforms. Improved flight management hardware and software have also been installed.

Designed specifically as a photogrammetric mapping camera, the DMC sensors offer a rigid square

frame and a fixed pixel geometry in a single pixel array that result in very high-quality geometric resolution. All DMC systems collect four-band multispectral (red, green, blue, near IR) and black-and-white panchro-matic imagery. Automated forward motion compen-sation and rapid refresh rate offer a great deal of versatility at both high and low altitudes. AeroMetric’s DMCs collect high-quality multispectral and panchro-matic imagery—at low altitudes for highly detailed, large-scale photography applications, and at high alti-tudes for small-scale regional projects.

GeoEye, Esri to Develop Crisis

Response Imagery Service

GeoEye and Esri have announced plans to jointly develop a new crisis response imagery service. This service, expected to be released this spring, will augment Esri’s current disaster response capability with GeoEye’s ability to task its satellite to collect high-resolution satellite imagery after a crisis. Currently, Esri supports disaster and crisis response globally with best prac-tices, technology and field response teams. GeoEye content plays a critical role in all aspects of disaster response. The new service will provide Esri and their user community access to timely and quality imagery during disasters. This new bundled solution is crit-ical as current world events escalate and first responders, government and commercial risk organizations have the need to see, understand and respond to crisis events when lives and property are at risk. ArcGIS users will be able to leverage GeoEye’s map-accurate imagery and Esri tools to gain clear and timely insight before, during and after a crisis, emergency or global event.

Security Visualization Software Offers Real-Time Alerting

IDV Solutions has announced a new real-time alerting capability for its Visual Command Center security visualization software. Visual Command Center, released last fall, unites data from multiple security systems and risk-related data sources into a comprehensive, real-time view. The software provides security operations with situational aware-ness and context they need to respond quickly and effectively to manmade or natural threats and emergencies. The new feature extends this ability by automatically alerting users to severe weather and global security incidents. The software moni-tors selected Web feeds for weather alerts and

incidents related to terrorism, aviation, natural disasters, border security, hazmat situations, disease outbreaks and other threats. Alerts are visualized in the Visual Command Center map and timeline, and sent to designated recipients via email. Users can zoom to an alert’s location on the map with a single click. The alerting feature intelligently restricts alerts to the most relevant events—those occurring near an organization’s assets, such as offices, warehouses or travelling employees. Each organization can customize its alerts by specifying the type of assets to monitor and the distance from an event location that will trigger an alert.

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffHOMELAND VECTOR

Sounding Technology Captures Weather Data from Space

Technology from ITT Exelis for severe weather forecasting is now fully operational and capturing invaluable weather data from space.

After launching last fall and completing on-orbit preparation, the Exelis-built Cross Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) instrument has begun measuring atmospheric profiles for temperature, moisture and pressure from space to the Earth’s surface. Called soundings, these measurements are crucial for global weather models, which directly impact two- to seven-day weather forecasts in the U.S. The sounding accu-racy of CrIS is well beyond the capabilities of previous operational sounders. CrlS enables weather forecasters to more accurately predict days in advance the path and severity of weather like tornados and snowstorms. The device is an integral part of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System

Preparatory Project, the next-generation U.S. climate and weather monitoring system. CrIS is the first in a series of advanced operational sounders, flying at an altitude of 512 miles and circling the globe as much as 14 times per day.


April 14-19, 2012Government and Military SummitLas Vegas, Nev.www.nabshow.com

April 16-19, 2012National Space SymposiumColorado Springs, Colo.www.nationalspacesymposium.org

April 23-27, 2012SPIE Defense, Security and SensingBaltimore, Md. http://spie.org

June 4-8, 2012GEOINT Community WeekWashington, D.C. areawww.usgif.org

July 23-27, 2012Esri International User ConferenceSan Diego, Calif.www.esri.com

October 8-11, 2012GEOINT Symposium 2012Orlando, Fla.http://geoint2011.com

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Astrium-Geo Information Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C2www.astrium-geo.comDigital Globe Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19www.digitalglobe.com/detailedanalysisEMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7www.emc.com/federalGeoEye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .C4www.geoeye.com/nationalsecurity

L-3 Stratis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20www.l-3com.comLockheed Martin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16www.lockheedmartin.com/mission-on-demandNJVC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21www.njvc.com

Compiled by KMi Media Group staffGIF CALENDAR & DIRECTORY

Volume 10, Issue 4 May/June 2012

NEXT ISSUE

Keith BarberDirectorNational System for Geospatial-IntelligenceExpeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office

Cover and in-Depth interview with:

Features:Operational 3-D Geospatial

Collaboration Tools

GEOINT Social Media

Insertion Order Deadline: May 15, 2012 | Ad Materials Deadline: May 22, 2012

Special Report:

Army GEOINT Profile(includes engineering/military intelligence leadership roundtable)


Dr. Walter S. ScottExecutive Vice President

Chief Technical OfficerDigitalGlobe

Dr. Walter S. Scott is the founder of DigitalGlobe and currently serves as execu-tive vice president and chief technical offi-cer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in applied mathematics, magna cum laude, from Harvard College and a Doctorate and Master of Science in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Q. What types of products and services does DigitalGlobe offer to military and other gov-ernment customers?

A. DigitalGlobe supports a wide range of defense and intelligence customers and is committed to meeting and exceeding their strategic and tactical requirements and expectations. From supporting military actions and national security to emergency management and mapping intelligence, DigitalGlobe helps government customers keep citizens safe and does so cost-effectively, preserving scarce taxpayer dollars.

DigitalGlobe’s robust surveillance pro-gram provides broad area coverage and time-liness, collecting a target anywhere on the globe daily, and moreover collecting the equivalent of the Earth’s land surface more than six times each year. The information content provided by our very high-resolution imagery supports a wide range of defense and intelligence needs, ranging from highly accurate maps to stereo imagery and 3-D models, to intelligence applications such as monitoring, force capability or vulnerability assessments, or facility characterizations. Its frequent revisit also enables timely change detection.

Our Direct Access Program is designed to meet the imagery needs of worldwide gov-ernment defense and intelligence custom-ers, as well as large commercial customers, by offering direct access to DigitalGlobe’s growing constellation of satellites. It provides direct tasking and direct downlink of imag-ery from our next generation WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites, and access to our QuickBird satellite as well. Seconds on Orbit (SOO) is a unique program designed to meet the high priority access and collection

flexibility needs of defense and intel custom-ers. The program features a combination of SOO-specific tasking and order options that allow the customer to more closely align col-lection requirements and changing opera-tional demands.

Q. What do you see as the most important aspect of EnhancedView program?

A. As the United States moves into a future with fewer boots on the ground, our eyes in the sky become increasingly important. The eyes provided by commercial satellite imagery are essential. Each of the nine sat-ellites to which the EnhancedView program has access over 10 years provides shareable information to warfighters, coalition part-ners, first responders and relief workers, who collectively represent our nation’s security interests. These satellites cover the globe, ensuring that we have up-to-date informa-tion immediately when it is needed, instead of scrambling to respond in the aftermath of a crisis, or placing our troops in jeopardy with outdated information. DigitalGlobe’s worldwide network of remote ground sta-tions enables imagery of over 45 percent of the land surface of the globe—and an even greater percentage of high-interest regions—to be downlinked in real time and made avail-able to troops in the field in from the tens of minutes to at most two hours. And this imag-ery is accurate to under 4 meters, making it suitable as a “gold standard” geospatial refer-ence layer.

Because the costs of commercial imaging satellites are spread across many customers, EnhancedView provides the U.S. government

with access to a large satellite constellation on a predictable, firm-fixed-price basis, for far less money than it would cost to acquire, operate, maintain and replenish a smaller constellation on its own. Moreover, stay-ing competitive with foreign satellite oper-ators pushes the U.S. commercial imagery providers to continue to advance their satel-lite capabilities and launch new satellites on schedule—all the while becoming even more cost-effective over time.

Q. What unique benefits does your company provide its customers in comparison with other companies in your field?

A. Virtually unique among space programs, commercial imagery is a paragon of tax-payer value. DigitalGlobe is best among com-mercial imagery providers in offering that value. With three healthy satellites on orbit today, we collect roughly 75 percent of the entire worldwide supply of half-meter imag-ery today, and whenever there is a crisis, our satellites are there collecting the whole pic-ture, instead of isolated snippets. We do this because our WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites have control moment gyro tech-nology that has been unique in the industry, and that the French Pleiades system is only just introducing this year. Since WorldView-2 was launched in 2009, no current or planned commercial imaging satellites match its capabilities, such as its industry-unique eight multispectral bands. WorldView-3 will con-tinue this trend when it launches in mid-2014, and will offer the industry’s highest resolution at 0.3 meters.

Yet each time we have added an increas-ingly advanced satellite to our constellation, it has cost the U.S. government less. We added WorldView-2 for two-thirds the cost of WorldView-1. We’re adding WorldView-3 for half the cost of WorldView-2. And—unique in the industry—DigitalGlobe has self-funded WorldView-2 and WorldView-3. Over the 10 years of EnhancedView, DigitalGlobe delivers access to more satellites, healthier satellites, more capable satellites and far more imag-ery—for less cost. O

INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Geospatial Intelligence Forum


Upcoming issues of

Geospatial Intelligence ForumMAY/JUNE (10.4)

COvER Q&A:

Keith BarberDirectorNational System for Geospatial-IntelligenceExpeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office

SPECIAl SECTION:Army GEOINT Profile and Engineering/Military Intelligence Leadership Roundtable

FEATURES:Operational 3-DGeospatial CollaborationSocial Media

TRADE SHOWS:GEOINT Community Week* (6/4)

ClOSING DATE:5/22

JUlY/AUGUST (10.5)

COvER Q&A:

robert CardilloDeputy Director for Intelligence IntegrationODNI

SPECIAl SECTION:Marine Corps Intelligence Command Profile with BGen Stewart Interview

FEATURES:Homeland SecurityBathymetric LiDARMulti-INT

TRADE SHOWS:Esri Users Conference* (7/23)Modern Day Marine* (9/25)

ClOSING DATE:7/6

SEPTEMBER (10.6)

COvER Q&A:

Brig. Gen. Stephen G. FogartyCommanderINSCOM

SPECIAl SECTION:2012 Top Intelligence and Geospatial Companies

FEATURES:Aerial ImagingTactical GEOINTTrainingMission Planning

TRADE SHOWS:AUSA* (10/22)

ClOSING DATE:8/24

OCTOBER (10.7)

SPECIAl GEOINT 2012 SYMPOSIUM ISSUE

COvER Q&A:

letitia a. longDirectorNGA

SPECIAl SECTION:CENTCOM GEOINT Profile

FEATURES:Special OperationsIndustry ShowcaseM&SAnalytic Software

TRADE SHOWS:GEOINT 2012* (10/8)

ClOSING DATE:9/21

DECEMBER (10.8)

COvER Q&A:

Vice adm. Kendall CardDirector of Naval Intelligence

SPECIAl SECTION:Full Motion Video

FEATURES:MaritimeVisualizationFeature ExtractionIndustry Outlook

TRADE SHOWS:TBD

ClOSING DATE:12/7

*Bonus DistributionThis editorial calendar is a guide. Content is subject to change. Please verify advertising closing dates with your account executive.

© 2

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Geo

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ved. Commercial geospatial imagery is an integral part of the modern warfi ghter’s arsenal.

GeoEye® provides rapid access to critical intelligence that enables our warfi ghters to see, understand and respond to change. And it’s 100% unclassifi ed, so it’s easily shared with coalition partners. Our public-private partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) means we provide this capability at a great value for taxpayers.

GeoEye. Protecting our men and women in combat. Protecting taxpayer dollars.

Visit www.geoeye.com/NationalSecurity to learn more about GeoEye.

GeoEye- 1 — 03 . 1 3 . 1 1 Unclass ifiedKabul , Afghan i stan

Put eyes on the groundbefore boots hit the ground.

2012GeoIntForum_warfighter.indd 1 2/28/2012 1:19:28 PM

Documents

GIF 10-3 (April 2012)