Procurement Rules Seen as Hurdle to More Federal Satcom Outsourcing

The U.S. hopes to incorporate more commercial satellite capabilities into its national defense architecture, but changes first need to made in federal procurement rules to allow longer-term contracts, said Robert Tarleton, director-Military Satellite Communications Systems Directorate, Air Force Space Command, at a satellite industry panel Tuesday. Tarleton said the Air Force is looking at issuing a Pathfinder that would let it buy transponder space on commercial satellites before launch, letting the agency be part of the design of the satellite architecture. Pathfinder is a DOD business model that lets the agency commit to using commercial satellite transponders for multiple years instead of shorter-term operations and maintenance leases. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is considering experimenting with an acquisition model where it would put out unclassified orders for imagery of specific areas or incidents -- such as troop placements in foreign countries -- and earth imaging companies could compete to provide the pixels, data and/or analysis, rather than its traditional approach of long-term acquisition contracts, said NGA Director-Source Strategies Chirag Parikh. He also said with capabilities from earth imaging satellite operators like DigitalGlobe and Planet Labs, imagery acquisition is no longer a challenge but data processing and analysis are, with the U.S. considering outsourcing more routine analysis work to commercial operators.