Harnessing the Small Satellite Revolution

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is announcing the “” initiative, building on a growing wave of private sector interest in miniaturized spacecraft for applications ranging from communications and remote sensing to satellite inspection and repair. Working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Department of Commerce, Defense, and other Federal agencies, OSTP has identified the following opportunities promoting the use of small satellites (“smallsats”) for a variety of uses:

NASA will purchase up to $30 million of Earth observation data obtained commercially from small satellites, and will create a new Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute based out of the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley one-stop shop” for best practices, lessons learned, and standards for all phases of smallsat development. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is partnering with the General Services Administration on the Commercial Initiative to Buy Operationally Responsive GEOINT (CIBORG) initiative to develop an efficient, single point of access for Federal agencies to purchase commercially-provided imagery data and associated analytical capabilities. NGA has also awarded a $20 million contract to startup Planet to purchasing large quantities of imagery Planet collects from its network of “Dove” smallsats. The Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has awarded contracts to GeoOptics, Inc., and Spire Global, Inc., two startups using smallsat constellations to collect radio-occultation data from global positioning system satellites, improving NOAA’s storm forecasting. The Department of Commerce is also elevating the role of the Director of its Office of Space Commerce (OSC) to reflect commercial space’s increasing importance for increasing economic growth, productivity, and job creation. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is releasing satellite datasets as part of two prize-driven challenges to achieve breakthroughs in the analysis of overhead imagery.