GEOINT 2017

Finnish startup Iceye to supply DoD unit with airborne imagery
Although Iceye is best known for plans to gather Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data with microsatellites, “Iceye has done and continues to do aerial SAR imagery as one of our services,” said Iceye CEO Rafal Modrzewski.

South America can be GEOINT experiment lab, military leader says
South America’s unique position in the world presents the opportunity to test out and develop new GEOINT capabilities, said U.S. Navy Adm. Kurt Tidd, leader of U.S. Southern Command.

MDA seeks to provide extensive support to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — MDA Corp.’s pending acquisition of DigitalGlobe will enhance the firm’s ability to offer U.S. defense and intelligence agencies not only imagery, but analysis and answers, said Rob Zit…

Harris working on $500 million contract to improve geospatial intelligence searching
The contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency seeks to allow analysts "to search and retrieve data from intelligence systems faster and more efficiently."

Ball Aerospace unveils commercial software for data visualization
Ball Aerospace is using expertise it gained building sophisticate sensors and merging various data sets for U.S. government defense and intelligence agencies to build VizZen, a cloud-based content library and visual-data repository for government and commercial customers.

Earth-i plans constellation to provide high-definition video imagery in color
Earth-i’s new constellation will allow customers to task the onboard imager to gather still or video imagery of targets of interest, capturing videos of 25 to 30 frames per second.

Ursa Space Systems and e-Geos forge revenue-sharing partnership
Ursa Space Systems, a geospatial data and analytics company, announced a revenue-sharing agreement with Italy’s e-Geos, the company owned by Telespazio and the Italian space agency ASI that operates four Cosmos-SkyMed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.

Q&A: NGA’s Diana Hughes has big expectations for small businesses
"We are looking for innovation. New companies spring up around great new ideas. We are looking for that kind of out-of-the-box thinking," Hughes said.

GEOINT could help revolutionize logistics, top general says
New technology for satellite imaging and tracking will help the military more efficiently move and deploy troops and hardware, the head of U.S. Transportation Command said.

New administration, Congress present opportunities for National System for Geospatial Intelligence
After years of relatively flat budgets, the Republican-controlled Congress and Trump administration might support increased spending for federal defense, intelligence and civil agency programs focused on geospatial intelligence, said Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

U.S. government should reduce impediments to commercial space innovation
Relaxing regulations and lowering some of the hurdles that discourage private firms from working with federal agencies would bolster innovation, according to panelists at the 2017 GEOINT Symposium.

Harris-exactEarth partnership promises minute-by-minute ship tracking
Harris Corp. and Canada’s exactEarth are establishing a space-based constellation of more than 60 maritime-tracking sensors to enable government and commercial customers to pinpoint the location of ships around the world nearly instantaneously.

Cardillo: NGA must do more to study North Korea
NGA doesn’t “have a higher priority” than North Korea, and is putting “everything that we can into” the country, the director said.

Shatner stops by GEOINT 2017, pitches NASA TV program
Best known for his role on Star Trek, William Shatner wants to feature the next generation of NASA scientists.

Planet adding its imagery to Harris ENVI platform
Planet announced plans June 5 to offer data from its constellation of global Earth-imaging cubesats through Harris Geospatial’s ENVI desktop platform, which means customers will be able to use the data with ENVI image-analysis software to detect day-to-day changes, classify objects and extract geographic features.