The nation's largest intelligence agency by budget and in control of all U.S. spy satellites, NRO is talking openly with the U.S. Air Force Space Command about actively denying the use of space for intelligence purposes to any other nation at any time - not just adversaries, but even longtime allies.
The U.S. commercial remote sensing industry has gotten a big boost with the loosening of government restrictions on the collection and sale of commercial satellite imagery, hardware, products and services. However, arms control advocates are concerned that the goverment's move to commercialize remote sensing functions is, in effect, enlisting private industry in the militarization of space.
The war in Iraq has prompted the US military to secure unprecedented access to commercial satellites. It needs to supplement its own substantial satellite data bandwidth to enable full surveillance of Iraq and reliable military communications.
Industry sources say the Pentagon has been scrambling to buy up access to commercial satellites to bolster its own orbiting space fleet. The military needs the bandwidth to support an information-age battle plan that depends on the ability to transmit huge amounts of data to troops in the field, planes in the air and even weapons in flight.
At least a dozen nations will watch the war with Iraq unfold from space, including some countries that oppose U.S. policies in the Middle East. That means a hostile government could share satellite intelligence about U.S. war strategy with Saddam Hussein.
Kuo outlines the challenges that space professionals face as they support traditional power-projection missions and new homeland-security tasks. Many navigation, communication, and weather-support missions translate easily from military roles to domestic-security support. But legal constraints, security classification, and complicated relationships among many agencies may make space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities difficult to integrate with local, state, and federal response agencies. Colonel Kuo also states that partial solutions to such challenges can come from innovative and creative uses of space assets.
The US government has bought exclusive rights to images from Ikonos, the world's most advanced commercial imaging satellite. The deal covers pictures of Afghanistan and parts of surrounding nations.
The U.S. military is paying for the exclusive rights to commercial satellite imagery of Afghanistan even though its own satellites are thought to take far better pictures. This could serve two purposes: to provide an extra eye on Afghanistan, and to prevent anyone else from peeking at the war zone.
With existing military broadband satellite systems no longer capable of meeting huge demands for bandwidth, the military is increasingly turning to commercial satellite providers to address the shortage. Use of the more cost-efficient commercial satellite systems will allow the military to take advantage of ubiquitous coverage over land to augment bandwidth provided by military Defense Satellite Communications System satellites.
The U.S. government, having authorized a wave of commercial spy satellites that can peer down from the heavens to pry into all kinds of secrets on the ground, is now exploring ways to destroy such orbital eyes in time of war. The Pentagon is spending $50 million this year to develop an anti-satellite weapon, up from $30 million last year. The goal is to prevent foes armed with orbital cameras from spying on American weapons and troop movements during combat, which would allow the United States to dominate the world of orbital reconnaissance at will.