NRO Amends BlackSky’s Contract for Satellite Imagery Services

BlackSky Holdings, a geospatial imagery provider, has been awarded a contract modification to provide on-demand satellite imagery to the National Reconnaissance Office through a monthly subscription.

The company said its products are suited for homeland defense, national security and emergency response missions. The effort is funded through NRO’s Electro-Optical Commercial Layer program, BlackSky said.

CEO Brian O’Toole said the company’s satellite imagery will fulfill the mission requirements of intelligence analysts and warfighters.

“We are seeing strong demand for tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance from government agencies including this customer, which is increasing its monthly subscription to BlackSky’s commercial imagery,” O’Toole added.

NRO is a government agency tasked with designing, launching and maintaining U.S. intelligence satellites. The agency provides reconnaissance support to the Department of Defense and the rest of the intelligence community.

BlackSky said its satellites are capable of delivering multiple images a day rather than providing one image collected at roughly the same time each day.

The company added that it plans to build a constellation of 30 high-resolution multi-spectral satellites that can monitor important locations every 30 minutes.

Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, BlackSky is an intelligence provider that processes data from various space, internet of things and terrestrial-based sensors, according to its LinkedIn profile.

BlackSky said it also operates a monitoring service called Spectra AI. The technology was designed using advanced techniques in machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision and natural language processing, the company said.