Weekly GEOINT Community News

NGA Releases Commercial GEOINT Strategy

NGA released last week its new Commercial GEOINT Strategy, which describes how the agency plans to leverage traditional, new, and emerging GEOINT capabilities. The strategy will assist in providing a roadmap for NGA to harness the unprecedented wave of persistence from commercial GEOINT providers for rapid delivery of imagery products and services.

NGA’s Commercial GEOINT Strategy will be at the center of discussion at USGIF’s Small Satellite Workshop Nov. 16-17 at NGA Campus East in Springfield, Va. The first day will be unclassified while the second will be classified. The workshop will include keynotes and panel discussions from government and industry leaders such as NGA Director Robert Cardillo; Chirag Parikh, director of the Space Policy National Security Council; Congressman Jim Bridenstine; Maj. Gen. Roger W. Teague, director of space programs at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at the U.S. Air Force; Planet Labs Co-founder Robbie Schingler; BlackSky Global Chief Technology Officer Peter M. Wegner; and many others. Additionally, nearly 20 exhibitors are expected to show demos and displays. Registration closes Nov. 9. Sign up for the Nov. 16 unclassified day here and for the Nov. 17 classified day here.

PrecisionHawk, Verizon, Harris, and DigitalGlobe Demo Safe UAV Operations

As a pathway toward safe unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) integration, PrecisionHawk, Verizon, Harris Corp., and DigitalGlobe announced the completion of initial testing of high-performance airspace services for consumer and enterprise UAVs. The companies integrated their technologies to include Verizon’s LTE network, Harris’ ADS-B and aircraft surveillance network, DigitalGlobe’s Geospatial Big Data Platform, and PrecisionHawk’s Low Altitude Traffic and Airspace Safety platform.

DigitalGlobe Expands Services with Intelescope and MapBox

DigitalGlobe will grow its partnership agreement with Mapbox by making 30-centimeter imagery basemaps of hundreds of cities and areas of interest around the world available to Mapbox users. Mapbox is the first commercial mapping platform to purchase 30-centimeter WorldView-3 imagery available with DigitalGlobe’s Basemap + Metro product. Basemap + Metro provides up-to-date, high-resolution imagery of thousands of major metropolitan areas around the globe.

Additionally, DigitalGlobe announced an agreement with Intelescope Solutions to enable global-scale satellite imagery data for the forestry industry. Intelescope will run its patented algorithms against millions of square kilometers of high-resolution earth imagery within DigitalGlobe’s Geospatial Big Data Platform.

IBM Acquires Weather Company Data

In a move to market and sell cloud-based weather information and software to business and government customers, IBM acquired the Weather Company’s data and digital properties, USA Today reports. IBM will own mobile and web assets, including weather.com, forecasting operation Weather Underground, the Weather Company brand, and Weather Services International. After the acquisition, the Weather Channel will license its forecast data and analytics as well as the Weather Channel brand from IBM under a long-term contract. The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016.

DC Inno Announces 50 on Fire Finalists

DC Inno recently announced the finalists for its “50 on Fire” list. This list celebrates the top innovators and influencers across Washington D.C.’s top industries. Congratulations to USGIF Organizational Members Accenture Federal Services and MapBox for being finalists. Winners will be announced Dec. 10. See the full list of finalists.

Photo Credit: DigitalGlobe