The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) has moved so swiftly to boost its use of commercial remote sensing services in recent years that it will not be affected much by a new White House policy unveiled last week to promote use of private sector imagery.

That is the view of Roberta Lenczowski, NIMA’s technical executive, who briefed the media May 15 about the agency’s rising use of commercial satellite remote sensing products and services.

NIMA, the federal agency that takes the lead in procuring remote sensing data from space to meet U.S. national security and foreign policy needs, will have its expertise put to use in helping civil agencies develop a revamped process for purchasing commercial imagery, she said.

As a U.S. national intelligence and combat support agency, NIMA’s mission is to provide timely, relevant and accurate imagery to support national security. NIMA is one of a number of federal agencies that will have four months to develop a plan for implementing the directive.

NIMA’s reliance on commercial imagery to fulfill its mission has increased significantly in recent years, Lenczowski said. NIMA’s expenditures on commercial remote sensing products and services are 10 times the planned budget drawn up years ago, she said.

One example of increased NIMA spending for imagery is the agency’s five-year, $500 million ClearView program. Denver-based Space Imaging and Longmont, Colo.-based DigitalGlobe already have signed contracts to provide imagery as part of that program. Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Imaging (Orbimage) also may participate if it successfully launches its high- resolution OrbView-3 satellite. That satellite would be Orbimage’s first high-resolution spacecraft. Space Imaging and DigitalGlobe each have a high-resolution satellite in orbit.

No one in the commercial remote sensing industry expected U.S. government sales to top more than 10 percent of their annual revenues in the early days of private sector involvement, Lenczowski said. Instead, private-sector demand anticipated for commercial remote sensing has not materialized and the government is becoming a major customer for all the U.S. imagery providers, she added.

NIMA also buys imagery from foreign companies, such as France’s SPOT Image and Canada’s Radarsat International, Lenczowski said.

A new acquisition program, to be called NextView, is in the planning stages. This would enable NIMA to purchase imagery after 2006 when the ClearView contract expires. A request for information for the NextView program has been submitted to the industry to prepare for NIMA’s release next month of an actual RFP (request for proposal), said Sandy Jacks, a commercial imagery program manager at NIMA.

“With this new White House policy, we are hopeful NIMA can help many other federal agencies ‘find their way’ to use this transformational technology to better serve the taxpayer,” said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications at Space Imaging. “To date, Space Imaging is meeting or exceeding NIMA’s expectation in delivering quality imagery under the ClearView contract. The capacity of Space Imaging’s IKONOS to collect large areas and the certified accuracy of the imagery meets all of NIMA’s tough standards.”

–Paul Dykewicz