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June 7, 2019 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

Satellite imagery startups to challenge Maxar for big government contracts

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The NRO is ready to start buying products from new vendors and move beyond the single-supplier arrangement with Maxar Technologies.

SAN ANTONIO — The talk of the industry at this week's geospatial intelligence symposium GEOINT 2019 was the National Reconnaissance Office's friendly outreach to commercial suppliers of satellite imagery that for years have felt shut out of the market.

A year after taking over the responsibility for buying commercial satellite imagery from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the NRO is ready to start buying products from new vendors and move beyond the single-supplier arrangement that NGA signed nearly a decade ago with DigitalGlobe, which has recently been rebranded by its parent company as Maxar Technologies.

Maxar is now the NRO's sole supplier of commercial satellite imagery under the EnhancedView contract, which NGA inked in 2010 with two companies — DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. By 2012, government spending cuts forced NGA to slash its imagery budget by half. EnhancedView subsequently was reduced from more than $7 billion to about $3.5 billion, which led to the merger of the two companies under DigitalGlobe.

Now, the NRO pays $300 million a year for access to Maxar's WorldView-1, WorldView-2 and WorldView-3 satellites and its image library under the program it renamed EnhancedView Follow-On. EnhancedView was originally a 10-year deal set to expire in 2020. When the NRO took over the management of the contract, it added three yearly options worth about $300 million a year.

NRO officials said extending Maxar's options until 2023 gives the agency sufficient time to transition to a new procurement while continuing to buy imagery from Maxar to ensure there is no disruption in supply.

Troy Meink, director of the NRO's geospatial intelligence directorate, announced June 3 that the agency in 2020 will start a new procurement that will include multiple companies. To begin the process, it awarded one-year contracts to Maxar and two other suppliers — Planet and BlackSky — to allow the NRO to study the companies' products and gain insight into the projected size and capacity of their satellite constellations.

The NRO calls these “study contracts” because the information they receive from vendors will be used by the agency to examine the companies' abilities to task, collect process and deliver satellite imagery. “These are major efforts to start working with vendors that traditionally we have not, to figure out how they can deliver product and best meet the requirements,” Meink told SpaceNews in a June 3 interview. “We are trying to understand how we can use their capability. Licensing is always a big deal. That's part of the study phase. How could we license that data?”

Meink said the opportunities for new players will be significant because the NRO expects it will need more imagery than it currently acquires from Maxar, which means it is likely to spend more than $300 million annually. Meink declined to say how much more.

A newly created Commercial Systems Program Office at the NRO will oversee the procurement of imagery. The office's director, Peter Muend, said that after the one-year study phase, the NRO will start planning large procurement awards in late 2020. “We see a dramatic increase in commercial requirements. That means we're going to be buying a lot more commercial imagery than we have in the past,” he said June 4 at GEOINT.

While the NRO will acquire the imagery, the NGA will continue to buy the “value added” services and analytics after the imagery is purchased, Muend said. “We are just buying the pixels.”

Muend said the NRO has an important relationship with Maxar but “no single provider can meet all of our needs. We'll be on contract with multiple providers in the future.” Maxar will remain a key provider, he said. “We're very much eager to continue to move forward with them but also add Planet and BlackSky, and others beyond that.”

Planet and BlackSky were selected because they are able to provide products now whereas other companies have plans to offer imagery but can't yet, Muend said. As the industry matures, the NRO will be open to bringing in more vendors.

The study contracts will be a chance for Planet and BlackSky to actually show they are viable competitors. “We want to make sure there's truth in advertising,” Muend said. Both companies have sold imagery and services to the government under narrowly scoped contracts, but the NRO needs to see whether they are able to satisfy the agency's more ambitious demands.

The NRO will model the companies' capabilities and analyze how their imagery would be integrated into the agency's ground systems architecture that will combine commercial and government imagery. The NRO also will examine the companies' business plans “so we have confidence in their projections of what they're going to build in the future,” Muend said.

In the first part of the study contract, the companies will demonstrate their imagery collection abilities. The second part is more complex and requires the companies to deliver imagery to “user specified downlinks.” This would show whether they are capable of providing imagery to military forces in war zones, for example, which operate tactical ground terminals. During a conflict, the military would need imagery quickly and would not want data to pass through the corporate enterprise architecture.

The study contracts will “lay the groundwork for the future,” said Muend. The plan is to focus first on optical imagery. The NRO will consider procuring other data sources from commercial vendors such as synthetic aperture radar, he said, when those products are available.

New competitors

Both Planet and BlackSky are commercial players that have been eager for a shot at the biggest imagery buy from the U.S. government.

When BlackSky was formed in 2015, several of its employees were GeoEye and DigitalGlobe alumni, including chief technology officer Scott Herman. “We're made up of people from the national security community that support national security missions,” Herman told SpaceNews. “We see that as our primary and first vertical that we really want to focus on.”

At the same time, BlackSky is rapidly building a commercial business. “The government wants us to have a commercial business,” Herman said. “They don't want us to be solely dependent on the government.”

Based in Seattle, BlackSky is owned by Spaceflight Industries, a space services firm. BlackSky has two Earth imaging satellites in operation and plans to have eight in service by year's end, Herman said. The company' long-term goals are to deploy 30 satellites by 2023, and possibly 60 in the years after, depending on the market demand.

BlackSky supplies high-revisit imagery but primarily sees itself as a provider of global monitoring and alerting services that combine pictures — taken by its own satellites and other companies' satellites — with other sources of intelligence such as social media, news and other data feeds. “We are not just a satellite company,” said Herman. “We build satellites to support our global monitoring.” BlackSky's foreign military customers have described the company's service as “NGA in a box,” Herman said.

San Francisco-based Planet has been making modest inroads into the defense and intelligence market. In March, the NGA renewed its third contract since 2016 with Planet, extending the agency's subscription access to daily imagery over select areas of the Earth.

“We're excited” about the NRO contract, Robbie Schingler, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Planet, said in a statement.

Schingler and other former NASA scientists founded Planet Labs in 2010 with the goal of providing universal access to satellite Earth imaging. It makes small, low-cost satellites and operates the world's largest constellation of commercial imaging satellites, with 140 currently in orbit.

The head of Planet's federal business, Jen Marcus, told SpaceNews the company is developing new analytics products using artificial intelligence, and is upgrading satellites with new cameras to satisfy demand for higher resolution pictures.

Marcus said the company will remain primarily a commercial business but does want to increase its footprint in defense and intelligence. In the future Planet is looking to become a vertically integrated imagery and analytics company, said Marcus. “We think there's a big value and efficiency in vertical integration.”

Despite the competitive pressures from new players, Maxar executives said they are confident the company will remain a key provider of imagery to the U.S. government. “For nearly 20 years, Maxar has been a trusted partner of the U.S. government,” Maxar CEO Dan Jablonsky said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with the NRO as they increasingly adopt commercial imagery.”

Tony Frazier, Maxar's executive vice president of global field operations, told SpaceNews the company has committed $600 million to building a new constellation of satellites, WorldView Legion, that would be smaller and image the Earth at faster rates than its legacy spacecraft. Legion will start launching in 2021 in anticipation of future government demands for high revisit imagery, Frazier said. The company has not yet revealed how many satellites it will build, although an FCC filing indicated it would be as many as 12.

Culture change at NRO

The commercial imagery procurement is viewed as a sign of a cultural shift at the secretive NRO. Meink said a desire to buy products from the market instead of developing government-owned systems is just common sense, given the massive investments made by the private sector in satellites and launch vehicles.

Muend said the NRO is changing but not radically. “When we first assumed responsibility for commercial imagery some folks worried that we wouldn't do it justice,” he commented. “I feel we have done the right things. We are having a deliberate discussion to make sure we buy commercial imagery everywhere we can, and only build national systems where commercial systems don't exist.”

There is a real effort to increase openness in “how we interact with providers,” said Muend. The agency will be watching developments in the industry as it figures out a procurement strategy for commercial imagery and other types of data. “We're operating on the information that we have now,” said Muend. “We recognize that what we're setting up now is not the final answer.”

https://spacenews.com/satellite-imagery-startups-to-challenge-maxar-for-big-government-contracts/

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    August 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - August 14, 2020

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    January 19, 2021 | International, Aerospace

    Aerovironment buys Arcturus UAV in $405M deal

    By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — Aerovironment, a leading supplier of unmanned aircraft systems to the U.S. military, has purchased Arcturus UAV for $405 million. Arcturus is currently competing for a $1 billion Army contract to replace the Shadow tactical unmanned aircraft system. Arcturus, which was founded in 2004 in California, specializes in Group 2 and 3 UAS, which run the gamut between drones over 20 pounds and under roughly 1,300 pounds. Army units are evaluating Arcturus' Jump 20 UAS. The drone is competing against Martin UAV and Northrop Grumman's V-Bat, Textron's Aerosonde HQ, and L3Harris Technologies′ FVR-90. The Jump is a multimission, medium-endurance, vertical-takeoff-and-landing system that can become airborne independent of a runway. Arcturus also makes the T-20, a multimission, medium-endurance, catapult-launched system. The Army is moving toward a final request for proposals with its Future Tactical UAS program that will replace the Shadow UAS, so the sale of Arcturus to a much larger UAV company is timely. Aerovironment did not have a path to Group 3 UAS, and bringing Arcturus into the fold fills that gap. According to those following the industry, Aerovironment has products that, when integrated into Arcturus' capabilities, could make for attractive future systems. Being acquired by a larger company like Aerovironment would also help the company become a more serious contender in the Army competition by building up its manufacturing capability to radidly produce UAS in large quantities, which the Army would require if the Jump is selected. The total purchase price of the sale is a combined $355 million in cash and $50 million in Aerovironment stock, according to a Jan. 13 news release. Arcturus previously supplied UAS to U.S. Special Operations Command's $1.4 billion MEUAS III and IV programs, the release noted. “We are excited about the opportunities for value creation through our acquisition of Arcturus UAV, which will enable us to accelerate our growth strategy and expand our reach into the more valuable Group 2 and 3 UAS segments,” Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and CEO, said in the statement. “Group 2 and 3 UAS and services, collectively, potentially represent more than one billion dollars in annual contract value, according to an independent forecast,” he added. “Combining our highly complementary products and technologies will enhance our portfolio, deliver top and bottom-line growth, and enable us to provide customers with a complete set of Group 1 through 3 UAS, tactical missile systems, high-altitude pseudo-satellites and unmanned ground vehicle solutions.” With Aerovironment, “we will have greater scale, expanded resources, cutting-edge technology and superior capabilities to meet the growing global demand for our products and solutions,” D'Milo Hallerberg, Arcturus UAV president and CEO, said in the statement. “We are confident that with AeroVironment, we can accelerate our growth as part of a larger, more diverse company and look forward to working closely with the team to complete this exciting transaction.” The transaction is expected to be complete by the final quarter of fiscal 2021, and Arcturus will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Aerovironment. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2021/01/15/aerovironment-buys-arcturus-uav-405m-deal/

  • Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 22, 2019

    January 23, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

    Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - January 22, 2019

    NAVY AAR Government Services Inc., Wood Dale, Illinois (N61340-19-D-1000); ACET JV LLC,* Waldorf, Maryland (N61340-19-D-1001); Adams Communication & Engineering Technology Inc., Waldorf, Maryland (N61340-19-D-1002); Aircraft Readiness Alliance,* Anchorage, Alaska (N61340-19-D-1003); The Boeing Co., Jacksonville, Florida N61340-19-D-1004); The Boeing Co., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (N61340-19-D-1005); DynCorp International, Fort Worth, Texas (N61340-19-D-1006); INNOVAIR LLC,* Chesapeake, Virginia (N61340-19-D-1007); Kay and Associates Inc., Buffalo Grove, Illinois (N61340-19-D-1008); L-3 Communications Integrated Systems LP, Waco, Texas (N61340-19-D-1009); L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace LLC, Madison, Mississippi (N61340-19-D-1010); Leidos Innovations, Gaithersburg, Maryland (N61340-19-D-1011); M1 Support Services, Denton, Texas (N61340-19-D-1012); M7 Aerospace LLC, San Antonio, Texas (N61340-19-D-1013); Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Herndon, Virginia (N61340-19-D-1014); PAE Aviation and Technical Services LLC, Arlington, Virginia (N61340-19-D-1015); Rockwell Collins, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (N61340-19-D-1016); Sunrise Beach Corp., doing business as M2 Services Corp., Allen, Texas (N61340-19-D-1017); URS Federal Services, Germantown, Maryland (N61340-19-D-1018); and Yulista Standard Aero (JV),* Huntsville, Alabama (N61340-19-D-1019), are each awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts. These contracts provide for logistics services for the Contracted Maintenance, Modification, Aircrew and Related Services (CMMARS) Program in support of aviation platforms of various Navy and Air Force type/model/series aircraft, inter-related systems, subsystems, and services. CMMARS will provide contractor logistics services for fixed-wing, rotary-wing, unmanned aircraft vehicles, and lighter than air vehicles, as well as integrally related systems and weapon systems. Logistical support to be provided includes logistics functions and maintenance tasks required to keep U.S. and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers aircraft ready, available, and operating worldwide. CMMARS may be used for platforms at all phases of the acquisition life cycle. The estimated aggregate ceiling for all contracts is $12,599,999,930, with the companies having an opportunity to compete for individual orders. Work will be performed at various afloat and ashore locations inside the continental U.S. (99 percent); and outside the continental U.S. (1 percent), and is expected to be completed in January 2024. No funds are being obligated at time of award; funds will be obligated on individual orders as they are issued. These contracts were competitively procured via an electronic request for proposals; 21 offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, Orlando, Florida, is the contracting activity. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $542,225,679 firm-fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for ancillary mission equipment (AME) and associated AME initial spares in support of Lot 13 F-35 Lightning II aircraft for the Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy, non-U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) participants, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected to be completed in May 2023. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force,); non-U.S. DoD participant, and FMS funds in the amount of $437,333,989 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0001919D0015). Rolls-Royce Corp., Indianapolis, Indiana, is awarded $35,672,562 for modification P00007 to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-17-C-0081). This modification exercises an option to produce and deliver 17 AE1107C engines in support of the V-22 aircraft, to include one engine for the Marine Corps, eight engines for the Navy, and eight engines for the government of Japan. Work will be performed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is expected to be completed in May 2020. Fiscal 2018 and 2019 aircraft procurement (Navy);and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) funds in the amount of $35,672,562 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This modification combines purchases for the Navy ($18,885,474; 53 percent); and the government of Japan ($16,787,088; 47 percent) under the FMS program. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity. Coastal Marine Services,* San Diego, California (N55236-19-D-0001); and Thermcor,* Norfolk, Virginia (N55236-19-D-0002), are each awarded firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award contracts with a five-year base ordering period to provide pipe lagging onboard Navy ships vessels within a 50-mile radius of San Diego, California. These contracts have an overall combined maximum ceiling value of $7,142,499. These two companies will have an opportunity to compete for individual delivery orders. Work will be performed in the vicinity of San Diego, California, and is expected be complete by January 2024. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $7,000 ($3,500 for minimum guarantee per contract) will be obligated under each contract's initial delivery order and expire at the end of the current fiscal year. These contracts were competitively procured via the Federal Business Opportunities website, with three offers received. The Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity. ARMY BAE Systems Land & Armaments LP, York, Pennsylvania, was awarded a $474,084,062 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for system technical support, sustainment system technical support, depot maintenance support, field service representatives, systems engineering, program management, engineering management, quality management, configuration management, logistics support, and software management and maintenance for the M109 Family of Vehicles. One bid was solicited via the internet with one bid received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 21, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-19-D-0040). General Dynamics C4 System Inc., Taunton, Massachusetts, was awarded a $26,767,467 firm-fixed-price contract for replenishment spares for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical. One bid was solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 23, 2020. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W15P7T-19-F-0030). Elbit Fort Worth Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded a $24,360,089 firm-fixed-price contract for the Common Helmet Mounted Display. Bids were solicited via the internet with three received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 21, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity (W58RGZ-19-D-0035). Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., Oak Brook, Illinois, was awarded a $14,136,343 modification (P00015) to contract W912BU-15-C-0054 for dredging and rock removal. Work will be performed in Chester, Pennsylvania, with an estimated completion date of March 15, 2019. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $14,136,343 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity. Facility Services Management Inc.,* Clarksville, Tennessee, was awarded a $13,241,456 firm-fixed-price contract to plan, manage, perform operations and maintenance for the Department of Public Works functions in facility maintenance, water, fuel, sewage plant operations, land resource utilization, family housing maintenance, and Real Property maintenance activity supply management. Bids were solicited via the internet with 11 received. Work will be performed in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 31, 2024. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $1,270,261 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S. Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W9124A-19-C-0002). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Ready One Industries Inc.,** El Paso, Texas, has been awarded a maximum $186,375,600 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSLIST). This is a one-year base contract with an 18-month ordering period and no option periods. Location of performance is Texas, with a July 22, 2020, performance completion date. Using military services are Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 through 2020 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-19-D-N057). Atlantic Diving Supply, doing business as ADS,* Virginia Beach, Virginia (SPE8EG-16-D-0023); Berger Cummins JV, Washington, District of Columbia (SPE8EG-16-D-0024); Caterpillar, Mossville, Illinois (SPE8EG-16-D-0025); Inglett and Stubbs International,* Atlanta, Georgia (SPE8EG-16-D-0026); and Texas Power and Associates,* Dallas, Texas (SPE8EG-16-D-0027), are sharing a maximum $90,000,000 modification (P00005) to a five-year contract for generators and associated supplies. These are firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, 160-day bridge contracts. Locations of performance are Virginia; Washington, District of Columbia; Illinois; Georgia;and Texas, with a July 1, 2019, performance completion date. Using customer is Federal Emergency Management Agency. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2019 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. AIR FORCE Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, has been awarded a $149,616,524 modification to contract FA8726-18-C-0005 to exercise Option Year One for Battlefield Airborne Communications Node, payload operations and sustainment. This modification brings the total cumulative value of the contract to $336,869,185. Work will be performed in San Diego and multiple international sites, and is expected to be completed on Jan. 23, 2020. Fiscal 2019 overseas contingency operations funds; and operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $149,616,524 are being obligated at time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity. Quantum Spatial Inc., Petersburg, Florida (FA4452-19-D-A001); Geographic Information Services Inc., Birmingham, Alabama (FA4452-19-D-A002); Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Virginia (FA4452-19-D-A003); Woolpert Inc., Dayton, Ohio (FA4452-19-D-A004); and KFS LLC, Huntsville, Alabama (FA4452-19-D-A005), have been awarded multiyear indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a combined cumulative face value of $46,564,206. These contracts will provide geospatial tasks and support functions for improved shared situational awareness and decision making across the various echelons of military hierarchy including individual level, installation level, and management headquarters level. Support may include technical assistance at Headquarters Air Force, field operating agencies, numbered Air Forces, main operating bases and reach-back support to forward deployed military personnel at forward operating locations, as well as a surge capability to quickly respond to wartime, contingencies and manmade or natural disasters. Work is expected to be completed by Jan. 21, 2024, and will be performed at various bases throughout the Air Force. These contracts are the result of a competitive acquisition and seven offers were received. Funds will be obligated on individual task orders. The 763d Specialized Contracting Squadron, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity for the multiyear indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts. However, individual task orders will be decentralized. Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Herndon, Virginia, has been awarded a $44,428,104 service firm-fixed-price, cost-reimbursable contract in support of the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node E-11A platform maintenance requirement. This contract provides for logistics product support for four E-11A modified Bombardier BD-700 Global aircraft, as well as subsystems and support equipment in support of overseas contingency operations. Work will be performed in Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Maryland, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 23, 2020. This award is a result of a competitive acquisition, and two offers were received. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds in amount of $44,428,104 are being obligated at the time of award. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, is the contracting activity (FA8726-17-C-0011). *Small business **Mandatory source https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1737551/source/GovDelivery/

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