The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community
Launch Leader Gen. Bruce Carlson (Ret.) Director National Reconnaissance Office
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April 2012 Volume 10, Issue 3
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 GEOINT’s Big Data Challenge Users 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 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 Space and Intel Cybersecurity
17 General Bruce Carlson (Ret.) Director National Reconnaissance Office
Information assurance and cybersecurity should be developed as fundamental elements of new systems. By Steve Hawkins
Departments
9
2 Editor’s Perspective High Stakes for EnhancedView Even 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
3 Program Notes/People 14 Industry Raster 25 Intel Update 26 Homeland Vector 27 Calendar, Directory
Perspectives on Commercial SAR
22
The 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.
Industry Interview
28 Dr. Walter S. Scott Executive Vice President Chief Technical Officer DigitalGlobe
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Volume 10, Issue 3 April 2012
The Magazine of the National Intelligence Community Editorial
Managing Editor Harrison Donnelly harrisond@kmimediagroup.com Online Editorial Manager Laura Davis laurad@kmimediagroup.com Copy Editor Laural Hobbes lauralh@kmimediagroup.com Correspondents Peter A. Buxbaum • Cheryl Gerber Karen E. Thuermer • William Murray Art & Design
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Associate Publisher Scott Parker scottp@kmimediagroup.com
KMI Media Group Publisher Kirk Brown kirkb@kmimediagroup.com Chief Executive Officer Jack Kerrigan jack@kmimediagroup.com Chief Financial Officer Constance Kerrigan connik@kmimediagroup.com Executive Vice President David Leaf davidl@kmimediagroup.com Editor-In-Chief Jeff McKaughan jeffm@kmimediagroup.com Controller Gigi Castro gcastro@kmimediagroup.com Administrative Assistant Casandra Jones casandraj@kmimediagroup.com Trade Show Coordinator Holly Foster hollyf@kmimediagroup.com Operations, Circulation & Production Circulating & Marketing Administrator Duane Ebanks duanee@kmimediagroup.com Data Specialists Rebecca Hunter rebeccah@kmimediagroup.com Tuesday Johnson tuesdayj@kmimediagroup.com Raymer Villanueva raymerv@kmimediagroup.com Summer Walker summerw@kmimediagroup.com Donisha Winston donishaw@kmimediagroup.com
Subscription Information Geospatial Intelligence Forum ISSN 2150-9468 is published eight times a year by KMI Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden. © Copyright 2012. Geospatial Intelligence Forum is free to qualified members of the U.S. military, employees of the U.S. government and non-U.S. foreign service based in the U.S. All others: $65 per year. Foreign: $149 per year. Corporate Offices KMI Media Group 15800 Crabbs Branch Way, Suite 300 Rockville, MD 20855-2604 USA Telephone: (301) 670-5700 Fax: (301) 670-5701 Web: www.GIF-kmi.com
Cloud technology has the potential to transform the intelligence 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 Harrison Donnelly 50 government and industry intelligence experts, is that cloud Editor 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.
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PROGRAM NOTES
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Low-Cost Satellites Sought for Tactical Imagery 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 location 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 maintenance costs beyond the warfighters’ handhelds.”
PEOPLE
Tony Moraco
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has appointed Tony Moraco, executive vice president for operations and performance excellence, as president of SAIC’s Intelligence,
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Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. Moraco has been responsible for enterprisewide business support in information technology, facilities, security, program execution, procurement, shared services and operational 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 counterintelligence executive. Montoya joined ODNI from the FBI’s Honolulu Division, where he was the special agent in charge.
The list of Navy rear admirals (lower half) nominated 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 operations for OpenGeo parent OpenPlans, has been named to the new position of vice president, operations.
GIF 10.3 | 3
As the volume of intelligence data grows, agencies must be able to store and move massive amounts of information. By Peter Buxbaum GIF Correspondent 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 petabytes 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 performance 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 priority basis. There are systems that break up 4 | GIF 10.3
and distribute massive files so that they can be processed with available computational 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 leadingedge approach to handling the problems associated with big data. “Examining the world requires large amounts of data, no matter if we are looking at large regions with broad areas of coverage, 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, infrastructure, events and all of their attributes come into play. With these data requirements come large storage requirements.”
The number of satellites gathering geospatial 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 captured at 1080p resolution as a UAV is flying 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, president of Hie Electronics. “Analysts want to review the data over a multi-year time span. So it is one thing to gather a petabyte of data. It is another thing to access critical data nine months or two years later so that you can compare that with the www.GIF-kmi.com
intelligence you are getting from your current mission.”
Exploitation and Dissemination Perhaps even more significant is the exploitation and dissemination requirement 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 delivered online, on demand. As improved enduser applications have driven expectations higher, the requirements for data have been increasing as well.” “We have found the volume and intensity 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 relevant 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-resolution data. Having a lot of data is nice, but it is not all critical and necessary. Storing and managing all the data can be simplified and better managed if quick decisions 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 dealing 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 enterprise is to centralize storage at the network layer using high volume storage area network hardware. “This approach is useful 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 www.GIF-kmi.com
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 familiar 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, spinningdisk hard drives and tape archives. Bluray 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 center services business unit at NJVC. “Tape will not be as fast as primary storage. Solid state drives provide much better performance than spinning disks but the issue is one of cost. Solid state storage is significantly 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 systems rely on solid state storage for storage of system and captured data.” Quantum3D offers ruggedized embedded systems that are used in sensor acquisition and storage applications. The systems, which are placed in air and ground vehicle environments where information is gathered, rely on solid state drives for storage of captured data. Hie Electronics offers a device called TeraStack, an active archive using multiple 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 storage, relying primarily on the Blu-ray optical 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 variations, 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 preset 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 rehydrated 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 forward deployable and can operate without a huge diesel generator supporting a hard drive-based air-conditioned storage container. 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 geospatial intelligence. “We have developed an imagery hosting, provisioning and dissemination platform called EyeQ that enables us to host large volumes of data for our customers, providing on-demand access via web services 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 platform 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 GIF 10.3 | 5
Transforming Mountains of Data As the intelligence comcost predictably, and doesn’t munity looks for solutions to its require teams of personnel to big data challenges, one of the manage.” leaders in industry’s response Geospatial services have a is Army Major General John great opportunity to capitalize M. Custer (Ret.), who currently on technological shifts to drive serves as director of EMC’s increased revenue and margin, federal strategic missions and Custer said. “By creating appliprograms. cations that can be easily hosted Custer’s lengthy career in via cloud networks and securely Maj. Gen. John M. Custer (Ret.) military intelligence included consumed via mobile devices, service as commanding genGIS providers can drive greater eral of the Army Intelligence Center and School. efficiency in their business and a better overStorage has become crucial simply because all experience for their customers. For examof the volumes of data being generated, Custer ple, NASA World Wind, an EMC Isilon customer, observed in a recent interview. “We’re living in utilizes open platforms to create state-of-thean Age of Big Data, where pedabytes of data are art geospatial services that are not only free of created on a weekly basis. The other issue is charge, but easily consumable on tablets and analytics. How do we manage, make sense and smartphones.” extract value from immense mountains of data? EMC Isilon is an ideal solution for big data Collection is easy—we have always been platchallenges, he said, because it creates a sinform- and sensor-centric. gle file system capable of scaling to more than “How we transform mountains of data into 1 million IOPS and 15 Petabytes of capacity. actionable intelligence, in real time, is the key,” This enables geospatial information providers Custer continued. “Technology in the geospato unify content into a single, shared infrastructial market space continues to evolve. The EMC ture, consolidating critical information to accelarchitecture allows inserting new technologies erate access, reduce management and speed without ripping and replacing along the way. As time to value. government agencies move forward in the years “As image resolution continues to rapidly to come, technology can be removed or replaced increase and drive exponential data growth, non-disruptively, thereby ensuring maximum Isilon scale-out storage is the only soludata availability on the latest technology.” tion capable of scaling in-line with business Custer noted that Isilon EMC storage is curdemands, minimizing capital and operational rently in use extensively throughout the media costs, while improving data access and workand entertainment industry, adding that the ISR flow productivity. This unique approach to data community faces very similar challenges. “The storage propels significant productivity gains need for a simple-to-set up, maintain and grow and cost reductions for geospatial information architecture that scales capacity, throughput and providers,” Custer said.
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 reassembled as the original image on demand. Russ Kennedy Kirk Kern “Instead of making multiple copies of huge files to kirk.kern@netapp.com independent storage nodes. When they make sure data is not lost,” explained are put back together they can be reconRuss Kennedy, Cleversafe’s vice president structed perfectly.” of product strategy, “an object like a picGeoEye selected Cleversafe, according ture of Earth is broken into a number to Kennedy, because it had petabytes of of pieces and those pieces are stored in 6 | GIF 10.3
data on tape and was looking to actively store the information online and to recover it efficiently without making multiple copies. “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 management of big data is exemplified by Appistry, which takes the analytic capabilities 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 processing. 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 tierless architecture that manages data up and down the different storage modes so that the hottest data is always placed in the fastest component,” said Kirk Kern, the company’s chief technology officer. “When a request comes in, the hot data gets accelerated to the fastest medium.”
Cloud Data Management Software solutions include data compression and increased use of the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), an emerging industry standard that defines www.GIF-kmi.com
the interface that applications use to create, retrieve, update and delete data elements from the cloud. “CDMI also functions as a management framework,” said Kern, “so that users can query the storage container and request that so many objects migrate from one content repository to another.” Kern believes that CDMI, which is an open source technology, will facilitate big data solutions. He added that increasing numbers of early adopters of CDMI are beginning to appreciate its value for big data solutions. NetApp offers turnkey products for big data storage and processing which include pre-packaged analytics, bandwidth solutions and content repositories. NJVC provides vendor-neutral storage management recommendations and integrated solutions. “We integrate total solutions into the customer environment. We collaborate with our customers to come up with the best solution based on performance 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 vendor is providing it as long as it meets your needs. It’s the same with cloud computing. It’s all about providing a service and not having to worry about the kind of environment the applications are running on.” Customers and potential customers are beginning to feel comfortable with the notion of storage-as-a-service, according 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.
BIG DATA
IT’S ON ISILON
Hard disk drives and Blu-ray optical media are getting denser, allowing more data to be stored on each disk and drive in an environment that will be dealing not merely with terabytes and petabytes of information, 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 companies like Cleversafe to begin to introduce solid state as part of its storage offerings. The challenge for military and intelligence 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 For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.mmt-kmi.com.
GAme-chAnGinG technoloGieS for iSr • Store & AnAlyze your DAtA • Protect your DAtA • Secure your network
www.emc.com/federal
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GIF 10.3 | 7
Lockheed Martin executive Ambrose offers leadership views on space industry and his company’s plans. By Harrison Donnelly GIF Editor 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 programs 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 consequences 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 drawing 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 everyone together—government, industry and other nations—to provide the framework and support system for advanced space-related endeavors,” 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 everyone 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 computer, 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 8 | GIF 10.3
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 clients, and we’re helping them with physical security using open source media. It’s eye-opening what you can Rick Ambrose 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 analytics, 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 technology standpoint, but also innovation on how we deliver those missions more effectively,” he continued. “We drive to our employees the importance of speed, relevance and value, and we’ve talked to our customers 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-constrained environment,” Ambrose concluded. O For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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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 conjunction 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 policies were scheduled to include Steve Hawkins, vice president,
As a community, we invest large amounts of money to develop, deploy, operate and maintain the most advanced intelligence 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 confidentiality, integrity and availability of critical information and infrastructures with the objective of total mission assurance. Mission-critical intelligence and space systems are vulnerable 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 penetrate these systems. However, there is no cyber-defense that will prevent the eventual penetration of these systems by a dedicated and persistent attacker. They will get in. Finding them once they are in, controlling their ability to exfiltrate sensitive information and architecting 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 entering intelligence and space systems, but also implement monitoring 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 understanding 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 www.GIF-kmi.com
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?”)
malicious or accidental. Raytheon’s insider risk management approach involves a continuous process of monitoring, risk assessment, policy definition for mitigating those risks, situation analysis and remediation of problems that occur. Insider threat protection solutions proactively defend against internal threats, constantly monitorSteve Hawkins ing and protecting against breach, fraud, data and intellectual property 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 necessary separation of information at various levels of security. For example, many ground systems operate in classified environments and require access to unclassified resources or distribute their resulting mission products to users at multiple levels of security. Raytheon has successfully incorporated new technologies to move security services such as trusted cross-domain and multiple domain information sharing solutions into an embedded 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 information assurance in from the ground up. The cost of an unprotected system being taken down is significant—it’s incalculable in its potential impact to national security. O
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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Despite imagery program’s successes, budget cuts loom. By Karen E. Thuermer GIF Correspondent 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 deficits 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 bureaucracy and cost of building such a project from scratch. GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, along with their host of subcontractors, received the government contracts, and National GeospatialIntelligence 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 fundamental differences within the national security community over the comparative value of direct government and commercial 10 | GIF 10.3
intelligence-collecting systems. Beyond the obvious potential impact on GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, analysts 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 Steve P. Wallach 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 www.GIF-kmi.com
needs—these include military operations, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, nation building and so on,” Wallach added. EnhancedView also provides a more resilient imaging constellation. These additional commercial satellites increase revisit opportunities and persistent surveillance over areas of interest, while also increasing the redundancy of collection assets to better ensure continuity of operations in the event of a system failure. In addition, EnhancedView increases the availability of geospatial 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-production 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 operations, 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 taxpayers, 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 significant impact on the EnhancedView program, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, and the broader geospatial and satellite imagery community, “Budget cuts would significantly reduce the ability of commercial 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 availability to end-users,” he said. “Now the government is scaling back its funding while GeoEye has already committed considerable resources to fulfilling its contractual 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 innovation that may not be fully funded. Companies may no longer commit 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 availability of imagery that can be shared with allies and coalition partners. “Any reduction in capacity would also impact private industry’s overall cost to the government,” Wallach added. “As the www.GIF-kmi.com
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 collectively 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 president and general manager, integrated geospatial sensing systems and environmental intelligence, ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems. ITT Exelis has been a major supplier to GeoEye and DigitalGlobe since IKONOS launched in 1999 and Rob Mitrevski QuickBird launched in 2001. “Any decrement in their business, which might dampen their desire to replenish their constellations, would presumably impact our business as well,” he said. “This uncertainty is particularly troublesome 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 Walter Scott service level agreement (SLA) solutions for the government. “We all recognize programs will have to be cut, but the consequences of backing away from commitments to commercial vendors for programs requiring long-lead investment are not insignificant,” 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 community and show how deeply commercial satellite imagery is embedded 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 relative value will become important in the decision of which commercial data provider is affected by the cuts.” GIF 10.3 | 11
Further, he claimed, GeoEye-2 doesn’t achieve technological 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 company said. “In fact, DigitalGlobe collects and makes available roughly 75 percent of the entire worldwide supply 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 technological capabilities (control moment gyros) that GeoEye will only introduce when and if GeoEye-2 becomes operational in late 2013.”
Year of Progress
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]
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 partnerships, 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 publicly 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 valueadded services contract, the Enhanced GEOINT Delivery (EGD), which is valued at up to $38 million. “The EGD award further exemplifies 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 surroundings. This is a significant achievement for DigitalGlobe, as it 12 | GIF 10.3
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 terminal (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 significant 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 subscriptionbased 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. www.GIF-kmi.com
“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 recognition 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 GeospatialIntelligence and allows users to access new imagery online within hours of collection. “This was part of our continued effort to provide images to endusers 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 significant 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 governments 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 information and intelligence to a broad range of customers,” Mitrevski commented. “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 leverage those lessons for our space oriented customers as well.” In addition, ITT Exelis continues to develop its strong positions in airborne ISR. These include recent contract wins, such as www.GIF-kmi.com
an award to supply the Army with the Federated Embedded IntelServer 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, discovery, 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 imaging 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 milestones last year, including an early completion of the space systems critical 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 comAllen Anderson 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 control 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 government users. “The successful completion of the final space systems CDR marked the program’s official transition from development to production,” Anderson said. In October 2011, Lockheed Martin began vehicle integration of GeoEye-2 with the delivery of the fully integrated propulsion system 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
For more information, contact GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly at harrisond@kmimediagroup.com or search our online archives for related stories at www.gif-kmi.com.
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INDUSTRY RASTER Software Speeds Processing of Aerial Workflows PCI 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 experience. 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; jones@pcigeomatics.com
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 performance. 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 instrument 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 Nelson buddy.nelson@lmco.com
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App Turns Mobile Phones Into GPS Recorders MediaMapper Mobile (MMM) from Red Hen Systems is an Android-based app for handheld 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 technology 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 comprehensive 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.
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 capabilities for unstructured documents that deliver customers streamlined and expedited location-based searches. Camille Sweger; csweger@4qbase.com
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 geospatial data from various legacy repositories. Under the terms of the contract, the Distributed Common Ground SystemArmy 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 transition from legacy data library systems to an interoperable resource that scales from mobile devices, ruggedized laptops, enterprise servers and virtualized environments. Despina Froumis; despina.froumis@baesystems.com
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Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Video Compression Module Designed for Defense
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 applications. 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, decompression 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; ian.mcmurray@ge.com
Navigation Payloads Ordered for GPS III Space Vehicles ITT Exelis has been awarded a $32 million contract by Lockheed Martin to build the navigation 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 nextgeneration 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
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Geospatial Software Offers Collaboration Capabilities TerraGo Technologies has introduced significant new capabilities with its new v.6 software release. The new v.6 software offers three unprecedented collaboration capabilities. First, all TerraGo GeoPDF applications produced by Publisher for ArcGIS and Composer for Adobe Acrobat v.6 software 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 automated GeoPDF map production using data-driven pages in Esri ArcGIS. John Deaver; jdeaver@terragotech.com meet the evolving needs of military, commercial and civilian users worldwide. GPS III satellites will deliver better accuracy and improved antijamming power while enhancing the spacecraft’s design life and adding a new civil signal designed to be interoperable with international global navigation satellite systems. Irene Lockwood; irene.lockwood@exelisinc.com
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Launch Leader
Q& A
Producing and Operating Innovative Overhead Intelligence
General Bruce Carlson (Ret.) Director National Reconnaissance Office
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 authorities 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 program 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 recipe for building, launching and operating the intelligence community’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 www.GIF-kmi.com
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 criteria. 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, program 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 several banners up about our current launch campaign, which has created some buzz. During the 50th anniversary and other events, GIF 10.3 | 17
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 something about us, feel pretty good about us. Q: Can you tell us more about the ambitious launch initiative conducted 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 difficult 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 180day 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 crucial. 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 different 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 lessons 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 vehicle. 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 18 | GIF 10.3
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]
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 capability needs or gaps, and then allows us to focus investments on the right priorities and capabilities. So we have already done some belttightening at NRO. For example, we have put all of our ground systems acquisition under one organization, which before were spread under different directorates and offices. We have taken some reductions in personnel, and we have worked very hard to present alternatives for the future that ultimately will save us money. We have continued to invest, despite the slope of our budgets, and we have kept www.GIF-kmi.com
the investment in science and technology not just steady, but growing. We’re already harvesting some of the technologies that are coming 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 targets. We continue to direct systems toward what I call multi-intelligence 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 looking 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 customers—NSA and NGA—with better and faster data. The technologies are arriving that will soon enable us to do that, and what we’re finding 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 contract better and more efficiently for common services, and we’re working 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 headquarters, 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 downsizing of the defense and intelligence apparatus.
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HIGH-QUALITY ANALYTICS
MONITOR WORLD EVENTS
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 several 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 complex and difficult technical problems. If you have an intelligence issue, then we’re the ones to call, because we look into what the other intelligence agencies do, and then because of our long-haul communications 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 mission need. www.GIF-kmi.com
INFORMED RESPONSE
www.digitalglobe.com/detailedanalysis GIF 10.3 | 19
Second, our systems are incredibly adaptable. In some cases these systems were put up decades ago. As you can imagine, something 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 monitor Soviet communications, for example. Today, the system is helping 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 adaptable overhead systems, I think we’re able not only to provide current
VISION IMPLEMENTATION
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 happen. 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 systems. 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-generation 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?
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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 equipment 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 constellations. 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 provide 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 www.GIF-kmi.com
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Perspectives on Commercial SAR 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 spacebased 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 Ian McLeod Andreas Kern 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.)
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 necessarily 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 overcomes the cloud and lighting issues often faced by optical systems. On the other hand, the black-and-white SAR data is not as easily and intuitively interpretable. Users need a sound knowledge 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 information about the physical characteristics of the surface, such as surface roughness, geometric structure and orientation, allowing 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
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the SAR detected data is only one way of utilization. Much more interesting and content- rich is to use SAR data to extract further information like ground control points, which we can derive from TerraSAR-X data with an accuracy of up to 1 meter, or digital elevation models that are processed from stereo data pairs by applying radargrammetry techniques. While being a valuable data source in its own right, spaceborne SAR provides additional benefit when being used in combination 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 fundamentally 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 illumination. 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
www.GIF-kmi.com GIF 10.3 | 22
a map of microwave energy reflections. This leads to some interesting properties. For example, since we are using microwaves, we can penetrate cloud cover and create images even in darkness. We can also very precisely control the characteristics of the microwave energy we use to illuminate a scene, and very precisely 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 intelligence 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 monitoring 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 becoming 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 detection, 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 fishing and cueing maritime patrol assets are two common uses. In Canada, a program called Polar Epsilon uses RADARSAT to routinely 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 allweather, 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
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the source and extent of the oil and provides key information that can help with deploying response teams. Finally, SAR satellites 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 applications 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 airports or large construction projects. However, there are some barriers to overcome when entering 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 incorporate 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 easily incorporating SAR data into their processes, while other customer 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 interpretation 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 important 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 parameters, 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 training. Education is also a two-way street: While we educate users about SAR, we are also learning about the needs of our customers 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 information they actually need, and then providing that information to them rather than forcing them to learn how to extract it themselves. This means the customer gets the benefit of our expertise 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 systemengineering 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 operations easy. Right now there are tools on the market that extract
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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 software 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 development side to enable interoperability and improve user friendliness. 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 application areas.
Q: As a “disruptive technology,” SAR frequently encounters 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 obstacles of adoption and is often regarded as “disruptive”—especially, 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 everything to ease the way for adoption. We show our clients how best to integrate the new technology into their operations and demonstrate how it can complement and enhance many of their existing 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 adoption 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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INTEL UPDATE
By George Meyers
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 information. In addition, legislation addressing civilian privacy concerns data is gaining momentum with the expansion of non-traditional intelligence gathering methods. Legislation has also been introduced to address breaches of private sector consumer information and the appropriate 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 collection. The Cybersecurity Act of 2012, recently introduced in the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is the primary bill explicitly aimed at protecting critical information and national infrastructure from cyber-threats. This bill intends to create a broad system of information sharing between the public and private sector, including the clarification of jurisdictional boundaries. O George Meyers is a senior vice president with Cassidy and Associates.
George Meyers
gmeyers@cassidy.com
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.67
Rep. 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.)
House Judiciary; House Intelligence
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)
House Judiciary; House Intelligence
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 publicprivate 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 Security
Mass 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 Intelligence
Cyber 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. 413
Sen. 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 Senate Judiciary (D-Wis.)
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. 1092
Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.)
Aviation Security Innovation & Reform Act or AIR Act: Establishes in the TSA the Office of Behavior Analysis, which Senate Commerce, Science, shall provide behavior detection training to TSA and other federal, state and local government law enforcement & Transportation personnel.
S. 1469
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)
Senate Foreign Relations
www.GIF-kmi.com
International 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. GIF 10.3 | 25
HOMELAND VECTOR GeoEye, Esri to Develop Crisis Response Imagery Service
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
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 stateof-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 panchromatic imagery. Automated forward motion compensation and rapid refresh rate offer a great deal of versatility at both high and low altitudes. AeroMetric’s DMCs collect high-quality multispectral and panchromatic imagery—at low altitudes for highly detailed, large-scale photography applications, and at high altitudes for small-scale regional projects.
Sounding Technology Captures Weather Data from Space
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 practices, 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 critical 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 mapaccurate imagery and Esri tools to gain clear and timely insight before, during and after a crisis, emergency or global event.
26 | GIF 10.3
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 sevenday weather forecasts in the U.S. The sounding accuracy 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 Polarorbiting 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.
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 awareness 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 monitors 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.
www.GIF-kmi.com
The advertisers index is provided as a service to our readers. KMI cannot be held responsible for discrepancies due to last-minute changes or alterations.
GIF CALENDAR & DIRECTORY
Compiled by KMI Media Group staff
Advertisers Index Astrium-Geo Information Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C2 www.astrium-geo.com Digital Globe Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 www.digitalglobe.com/detailedanalysis EMC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 www.emc.com/federal GeoEye. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 www.geoeye.com/nationalsecurity
L-3 Stratis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 www.l-3com.com Lockheed Martin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 www.lockheedmartin.com/mission-on-demand NJVC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 www.njvc.com
Calendar April 14-19, 2012 Government and Military Summit Las Vegas, Nev. www.nabshow.com
April 23-27, 2012 SPIE Defense, Security and Sensing Baltimore, Md. http://spie.org
July 23-27, 2012 Esri International User Conference San Diego, Calif. www.esri.com
April 16-19, 2012 National Space Symposium Colorado Springs, Colo. www.nationalspacesymposium.org
June 4-8, 2012 GEOINT Community Week Washington, D.C. area www.usgif.org
October 8-11, 2012 GEOINT Symposium 2012 Orlando, Fla. http://geoint2011.com
NEXTISSUE
Volume 10, Issue 4 May/June 2012
Cover and In-Depth Interview with:
Keith Barber
Director National System for Geospatial-Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office
Features: Operational 3-D Geospatial Collaboration Tools GEOINT Social Media
Special Report:
Army GEOINT Profile (includes engineering/military intelligence leadership roundtable)
Insertion Order Deadline: May 15, 2012 | Ad Materials Deadline: May 22, 2012
www.GIF-kmi.com
GIF 10.3 | 27
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Geospatial Intelligence Forum
Dr. Walter S. Scott Executive Vice President Chief Technical Officer DigitalGlobe 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, staying competitive with foreign satellite operators pushes the U.S. commercial imagery providers to continue to advance their satellite capabilities and launch new satellites on schedule—all the while becoming even more cost-effective over time.
Dr. Walter S. Scott is the founder of DigitalGlobe and currently serves as executive vice president and chief technical officer. 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 government 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 program provides broad area coverage and timeliness, 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 government defense and intelligence customers, 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 imagery 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 28 | GIF 10.3
flexibility needs of defense and intel customers. The program features a combination of SOO-specific tasking and order options that allow the customer to more closely align collection requirements and changing operational 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 satellites to which the EnhancedView program has access over 10 years provides shareable information to warfighters, coalition partners, 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 information 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 stations 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 available to troops in the field in from the tens of minutes to at most two hours. And this imagery is accurate to under 4 meters, making it suitable as a “gold standard” geospatial reference layer. Because the costs of commercial imaging satellites are spread across many customers, EnhancedView provides the U.S. government
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 taxpayer value. DigitalGlobe is best among commercial 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 imagery today, and whenever there is a crisis, our satellites are there collecting the whole picture, instead of isolated snippets. We do this because our WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites have control moment gyro technology 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 continue this trend when it launches in mid2014, and will offer the industry’s highest resolution at 0.3 meters. Yet each time we have added an increasingly 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 imagery—for less cost. O www.GIF-kmi.com
Upcoming issues of
Geospatial Intelligence Forum MAY/JUNE (10.4)
JULy/AUGust (10.5)
SEPtember (10.6)
OCTober (10.7)
DECember (10.8)
Cover Q&A:
Cover Q&A:
Cover Q&A:
Cover Q&A:
Keith Barber
Robert Cardillo
Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Fogarty
Special GEOINT 2012 Symposium Issue
Director National System for Geospatial-Intelligence Expeditionary Architecture Integrated Program Office
Special Section: Army GEOINT Profile and Engineering/Military Intelligence Leadership Roundtable
Features: Operational 3-D Geospatial Collaboration Social Media
Trade Shows: GEOINT Community Week* (6/4)
Closing Date: 5/22
Deputy Director for Intelligence Integration ODNI
Special Section: Marine Corps Intelligence Command Profile with BGen Stewart Interview
Features: Homeland Security Bathymetric LiDAR Multi-INT
Trade Shows: Esri Users Conference* (7/23) Modern Day Marine* (9/25)
Closing Date: 7/6
Commander INSCOM
Special Section: 2012 Top Intelligence and Geospatial Companies
Features: Aerial Imaging Tactical GEOINT Training Mission Planning
Trade Shows: AUSA* (10/22)
Closing Date: 8/24
Cover Q&A: Letitia A. Long Director NGA
Special Section: CENTCOM GEOINT Profile
Features: Special Operations Industry Showcase M&S Analytic Software
Trade Shows: GEOINT 2012* (10/8)
Vice Adm. Kendall Card Director of Naval Intelligence
Special Section: Full Motion Video
Features: Maritime Visualization Feature Extraction Industry Outlook
Trade Shows: TBD
Closing Date: 12/7
Closing Date: 9/21
*Bonus Distribution This editorial calendar is a guide. Content is subject to change. Please verify advertising closing dates with your account executive.
GeoEye-1 — 03.13.11 Unclassified Kabul, Afghanistan
© 2012 GeoEye. All Rights Reserved.
Put eyes on the ground before boots hit the ground.
Commercial geospatial imagery is an integral part of the modern warfighter’s arsenal. GeoEye® provides rapid access to critical intelligence that enables our warfighters to see, understand and respond to change. And it’s 100% unclassified, 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.