Weekly GEOINT Community News

Planet Upgrades SkySat Offerings

Planet has unveiled three new releases as part of its overall tasking offerings. Combined, these releases not only enhance the core imagery for analysis, but also reduce friction to acquire that data.

Higher resolution 50 cm imagery: In just six months, Planet has successfully lowered its SkySat constellation to enhance the spatial resolution of SkySat imagery from 80 cm to 50 cm for its ortho product.

Tasking Dashboard: The Tasking Dashboard is a new user interface that allows customers to request SkySat collections, while Planet’s new API provides efficient, automated access. With the Tasking Dashboard and API, customers can autonomously submit, modify, and cancel SkySat imagery requests.

Rapid revisit, with up to 12x revisit capabilities: The upcoming launch of six new SkySats will allow Planet to image certain locations up to 12 times per day, at a global average of seven times per day. This unprecedented capability will provide more rapid response to global events and enable imaging at times of the day previously unseen by satellites.

Planet applies an agile aerospace approach to its SkySat offerings to support a growing customer base, from federal and civil governments to commercial forestry to energy and more. These product advances are key components of its overall mission to democratize access to satellite imagery, providing critical intelligence to customers and organizations when they need it most.

CACI Awarded $1.5B to Provide Transport and Cybersecurity Services to NGA

CACI has been awarded its largest contract in company history, a single-award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide transport and cybersecurity services to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The single award IDIQ has a base period of five years plus five one-year award term periods with a ceiling of $1.5 billion. Under the contract, CACI will provide enterprise information technology (IT) services to NGA and its mission partners. The company will also help NGA create efficiencies by making available an expansive service and material catalog to the agency that streamlines the acquisition of IT services from weeks to days for streamlined customer support.

Perspecta awarded $237M to Deliver New Training Information Management System to U.S. Army

Perspecta has been awarded a four-year, fixed-price award with a total potential ceiling value of $237 million from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to deliver the Army Training Information System (ATIS). The award is for Phase II of the ATIS program and includes the development, integration, delivery, operation, and maintenance of an enterprise capability for Army training and education information. Perspecta successfully completed Phase I of the ATIS program in 2019 when the company delivered a prototype of its ATIS solution, which included Fox, a commercial-off-the-shelf software from Britannica Knowledge Systems. The Perspecta solution will consolidate 28 legacy systems, implement proven processes, and migrate data into a single-entry, integrated, cloud-based system. This will also provide the Army with a real-time understanding of combat readiness with reduced cost and complexity.

Northrop Grumman to Provide Next-Generation Missile Warning Satellites for U.S. Space Force

Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $2.37 billion contract for Phase 1 of the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) Polar program from the United States Space Force (USSF). The contract from the USSF Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) covers the design and development of the first two polar-orbiting space vehicles under the Next-Gen OPIR system. As the Next-Generation Polar (NGP) prime contractor, Northrop Grumman will provide flight hardware, ground system development, and perform critical risk reduction in support of a critical design review.

Leidos Awarded DIA Enterprise Infrastructure Operations Services Contract

Leidos has been awarded a new prime contract to provide information technology operations and maintenance support services to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The task order awarded under DIA’s ESITE indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity, cost-plus-award-fee contract has a five-month base period of performance followed by five one-year option periods and a final six-month option period. The contract holds a value of $401 million if all options are exercised. Work will be performed primarily at DIA headquarters at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling Washington, DC and at Leidos facilities.

BAE Systems Selected to Provide Autonomy Capabilities for DARPA’s Squad X Program

Lockheed Martin awarded BAE Systems a contract to provide key autonomy and artificial intelligence capabilities for DARPA’s Squad X program. BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organization will provide Mission Intelligence for Tactical Systems (MITS) advanced sensor fusion, artificial intelligence, and autonomy. MITS is highly automated and directs mobile robots and their sensor payloads while reducing the cognitive load on its partner warfighters. MITS fuses sensor data, constructs and shares battlefield awareness with its human squad mates, and provides tactical electronic and kinetic support to the squad as it maneuvers and engages enemy positions. MITS-synthesized awareness informs human decision-making in complex, time-critical combat situations, and directs continuous autonomous robotic tasking.

Accenture Completes Acquisition of Gekko

Accenture has completed its acquisition of Gekko, a leading French Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services company. The acquisition strengthens Accenture’s leadership position in cloud and artificial intelligence, extends its ongoing relationships with key technology providers—including ecosystem partners such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft—and complements the cloud migration expertise and strategic objectives of the Accenture AWS Business Group in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Featured Image: 50 cm SkySat imagery of the Mundra Power Plant in Gujarat, India, on April 4, 2020. © 2020 | Photo Credit: Planet Labs Inc