Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stacey Dixon (USGIF workers)
GEOINT 2021: The Intelligence Community (IC) and key policy-makers inside the Biden administration are intensifying efforts to cut back regulatory burdens and encourage extra competitors within the business distant sensing satellite tv for pc market, mentioned Stacey Dixon, deputy director of nationwide intelligence.
While she offered few specifics about plans in her deal with to the annual GEOINT convention right this moment, she did say that of their deliberations on the best way ahead, authorities officers wish to the mannequin of streamlined area launch licensing practices. Regulatory reform has freed the launch business in a means that has allowed costs to loft satellites to orbit to drop dramatically, she defined, and there's a thriving ecosystem of American firms competing for enterprise.
“It is important to realize and recognize that there’s a growing consensus, not only in the IC but also among policy-makers, that the kind of change that we’ve seen in launch services is the right way to go in other areas,” Dixon mentioned on the convention hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF). “And this is because there was a recognition that the competitive environment is rapidly changing. And in this new environment, American industry must continue to lead.”
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She asserted that the US authorities should adapt the best way it does enterprise within the distant sensing enviornment — which has resulted in a state of affairs the place “American companies have been constrained by a commercial licensing process that for many has been slow and opaque and felt burdensome” — to face rising challenges and threats from opponents corresponding to China.
“If we don’t adapt, others will set the rules and challenge our new leadership. We should set the rules. We should influence the standards, and do so in a way that is consistent with our democratic values,” Dixon mentioned.
The threats and challenges usually are not merely within the navy enviornment, she defined, but additionally within the non-public sector sphere.
“We understand that foreign competitors are numerous and growing. This includes growth among our allies and friends, but also growth in those countries where [lines between] public and private, and especially civilian and military, are more blurred or non-existent,” Dixon mentioned. “In our analysis, some of these companies are closing the gap, creating security concerns, and winning private sector business that could be yours.”
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She famous that lately the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) set about making a coordination mechanism for all of the IC actors concerned in area “to speak with a unified voice” in working with the Departments of Defense, State and Commerce on distant sensing points. Further, the IC is “increasingly integrating industry voices into our deliberations” to raised perceive and deal with business firm wants.
“We want to pare down the constraints you face to only those that are absolutely necessary, particularly when it comes to competing on capabilities that are commercially available from others,” Dixon informed the largely business GEOINT viewers. “While lifting some restrictions will not be possible, because custom and classified GEOINT capabilities are still critical to helping us understand and confront core national security challenges, it should be possible to provide a unified clear response that will allow you to make the investments you need and want to make more quickly.”
Dixon’s phrases had been little doubt music to the ears of the business distant sensing business, which has been involved that the Intelligence Community beneath the Biden administration may backslide on the earlier administration’s regulatory reform push.
In specific, a variety of business gamers have been anxious that the National Reconnaissance Office is eager to reverse licensing reforms made by the Commerce Department final May that freed up US companies to promote very excessive decision pictures if equal imagery is on the market on the worldwide market. Those fears had been stoked by the workplace’s launch in June of a draft request for proposals (RFP) for business imagery program, generally known as the Electro Optical Commercial Layer (EOCL), obtained by Breaking Defense in July.
The ultimate RFP has not but been launched, however as Space News reported yesterday, the draft is at the moment being reviewed by the IC (together with DoD) and is anticipated by the tip of the yr.
