From left: USGIF Chairman Robert Cardillo, Synspective CEO Motoyuki Arai, Capella Space CEO Frank Backes, BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole, and Maxar Intelligence CEO Dan Smoot. Photo: The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF)

ST LOUIS — Commercial satellite imagery and sensing leaders see growing demand in the international market for geospatial intelligence and are looking at ways to increase collaboration and streamline the way U.S. government and international partners can access commercial insights.  

“We’re seeing a speed to adoption in the international market that’s accelerated like never before,” Maxar Intelligence CEO Dan Smoot said Monday at GEOINT Symposium 2025 in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Smoot referenced to the situation in March of this year when the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) temporarily suspended Ukraine’s access to the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery system (GEGD), which provides access to commercial satellite imagery. In media statements at the time, Maxar said it temporarily suspended access to Ukrainian users through GEGD. Access was later restored. 

Smoot called it an “interesting time,” and that it opened the world’s eyes to how impactful commercial GEOINT is for defense and intelligence missions. “I think sometimes there’s an understanding about what we did for mapping but truly how the information is used to help the warfighter really became apparent in these discussions,” Smoot said. 

He described a shifting geopolitical landscape as European and NATO nations are looking to invest more in space capabilities. 

“We’re seeing that nations are stepping up, realizing that they don’t have time to go and build assets. … Commercial is its path to develop capabilities needed moving forward,” Smoot said. “Our operational capabilities to deliver this information in a timely manner is becoming more and more important for them every day, for more national security. There’s been a major shift because of recent policies to help open up the international markets.”

BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole echoed “strong momentum” from international government customers, saying these governments want to move faster with commercial capabilities. 

“Our partners want to more rapidly build internal capacity, either through sovereign satellites, but also in software and AI. I think that’s where the opportunity is right now — countries around the world see the need to accelerate their space-based intelligence capabilities. Commercial is a really good way to get there very quickly that leverages things that are already on orbit, plus entering into long-term partnerships that help build that capacity,” O’Toole said. 

Motoyuki Arai, CEO of Japanese synthetic aperture radar (SAR) company Synspective said that he sees “huge demand” from the Japan Ministry of Defense. The Japanese government has an advanced strategy to deploy its budget for technology, including space capabilities, he said. 

“This is a good opportunity for us, but we have to leverage this opportunity to make collaboration to [meet] international demand, not only for national security but also for commercial businesses as well,” Arai said. 

Speaking to commercial imagery’s role in Ukraine, Capella Space CEO Frank Backes said Ukraine showed the value of Earth Observation (EO) data from a military tactical perspective and not just an intelligence perspective — driven by speed of access. 

“The barrier and the driver there is latency. How quickly can we get from tasking to the satellite capturing the data that you’re interested in, getting that back in the hands of the warfighter who’s interested in that particular piece of information,” Backes said. “Latency has been a big challenge, without question.” 

Earlier this month, quantum networking company IonQ announced a deal to acquire Capella Space to accelerate its plans in quantum networking. Backes said that merging with a quantum company will lead to improved latency and security. 

“One of the reasons that we’re excited about the IonQ acquisition merger with us, is getting after what latency represents. The other side is security — the need for us to be able to deliver reliable, secure data to those customers is more critical than it’s ever been. Being able to take the technology and be able to create sovereign control and sovereign access is really what the next generation of the commercial systems are going to represent,” Backes said.