Title: Commercial Satellite Imagery and National Security Space. Description: News media have labeled the war in Ukraine the first commercial space war because of its extensive use of commercial satellite images in monitoring things like the movement of troops and tanks and the impacts of attacks. As more and more commercial satellites, owned by private sector companies, are launched, their role in national and global security is coming into focus. We find out how the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense is using commercial satellites in our national defense efforts from GAO's Brian Mazanec. Related GAO Work: GAO-22-106106, National Security Space: Actions Needed to Better Use Commercial Satellite Imagery and Analytics Released: September 2022 [Music] [Brian Mazanec:] Commercial satellite capabilities are going to increasingly be indispensable to the national security enterprise. [Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. News media have labeled the war in Ukraine the first commercial space war because of its extensive use of commercial satellite images in monitoring things like the movement of troops and tanks and the impacts of attacks. As more and more commercial satellites, owned by private sector companies, are launched, their role in national and global security is coming into focus. Today, we'll find out how the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense is using commercial satellites from Director Brian Mazanec, an expert on emerging defense threats and capabilities, who has a new report out on this topic. Thanks for joining us. [Brian Mazanec:] Thanks for having me. [Holly Hobbs:] So Brian, the public has kind of become aware of the use of commercial satellites because of photos we've seen in the media of Russian equipment like tanks moving into or out of Ukraine. But what can you tell us about how the U.S. is using commercial satellites? [Brian Mazanec:] DOD and the intelligence community have their own satellite capabilities, However, there are really two key advantages to also leveraging commercial capabilities. The first of these is shareability. So commercial imagery is almost always unclassified and can be more easily shared with allies and partners. We saw, with the media coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, for example, the critical role commercial satellite imagery can play by providing--in a very shareable way--locations, movements and activities of Russian forces. And the U.S. is currently sharing commercial imagery with the Ukrainian government to support their defense against Russia. And this kind of sharing is just simply not possible or practical with some of our more highly classified government satellites. [Holly Hobbs:] And what's the second advantage? [Brian Mazanec:] Capacity. So having commercial satellites providing the foundational imagery for things like mapping and open ocean surveillance frees up government capacity to focus on more challenging needs that the commercial sector is not yet addressing. This is what the National Reconnaissance Office, known as the NRO, refers to as its 'buy what we can, build what we must' approach. I also think the growth of the commercial satellite industry has really been astounding, and its potential contributions to these two issues, capacity and shareability, are increasing. For example, the US commercial sector had approximately 200 satellites in 2005. By 2020, that number was about 1,200. So more than doubling. And as of the end of 2021, there were over 2,500 US commercial satellites. [Holly Hobbs:] So we looked at DOD's and the intelligence community's current strategy or approach for acquiring images from commercial satellites. What did we find? [Brian Mazanec:] We found that the current approach faces challenges incorporating the rapidly improving commercial capabilities, both in terms of timeliness and scaling. In terms of timeliness, the commercial satellite imagery industry continues to rapidly change. So finding ways the government can take advantage of that continuous innovation is difficult. And to be fair, the IC and DOD did continue to work on this issue from 2016 to present. But the basic framework they followed is the standard process used to develop major government programs. It isn't fast. Officials themselves really emphasized that the requirements are not dynamic or adaptable enough to incorporate emerging commercial capabilities. And agencies have found and are looking for other ways to more quickly get at the new capabilities. But those tend to be relatively small scale. And that gets us to scaling. The second challenge that we found. The more flexible ways the government has purchased, often tend to be at the smaller scale. We found it's been a challenge to really scale those up, so that is worthwhile from sort of a business proposition for the commercial companies to provide the service and develop and invest in developing new capabilities for the government. [Holly Hobbs:] So what are the potential impacts of all of that? [Brian Mazanec:] So the DOD and IC leaders that we met with, they're concerned about the growing challenges posed by China and Russia, and that U.S. technological advantages are eroding. China has made huge gains in space capabilities and is leveraging commercial capabilities as well. There's really strong recognition here that the IC and DOD must team with commercial geospatial intelligence providers in the remote sensing area in order to maintain and grow our competitive advantage. [Holly Hobbs:] Did we talk to any commercial satellite owners or companies? [Brian Mazanec:] we did have long discussions with about a dozen commercial vendors. Four of the commercial imagery vendors, those with sort of research and development contracts, expressed genuine frustration with the long lead-time of the process. They also found that the small-study contracts rarely translated into larger government commitments. So because of this and the significant pressure these companies experience to show a growing revenue stream and justify private equity investments, there's always the risk that these commercial imagery vendors will just lack the support they need from DOD or the IC to scale them up for the national security enterprise. [Holly Hobbs:] So we've talked a little bit about DOD's and the intelligence community's strategy but what about info sharing and organization. Did we find any challenges there? [Brian Mazanec:] Yes, we did. First, we found that the IC and the DOD need to establish clear roles and responsibilities for the acquisition of commercial satellite imagery and then communicate this to all the relevant stakeholders. What we found was that the NRO and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, NGA, have written agreements documenting specific responsibilities among their two agencies. However, once you get outside of NRO and NGA, there's no guidance that addresses organizational roles and responsibilities across the IC and DOD related to commercial satellite imagery. And this is particularly problematic with the U.S. Space Force coming online and developing its service-specific mission areas and focuses. Another challenge we found is that the IC and DOD have not developed performance goals or measures to assess progress in truly maximizing their use of commercial space capabilities, which is their strategic goal. Right now, in their commercial requirements documents, they have a number of technical measures to track aspects of commercial imagery, things like coverage, timeliness, accuracy. And we think these are good. But we think the DOD and the IC lack are those performance goals and measures specifically aimed at maximizing and incentivizing the use of commercial capabilities over time. {MUSIC} [Holly Hobbs:] So Brian just told us that commercial satellites will likely play a critical role in U.S. intelligence and national defense. But that U.S. efforts to use images are slowed by current processes and limited coordination between federal entities. So Brian, what do we think the DOD and the U.S. intelligence community should be doing to promote national security when it comes to commercial satellite image use? [Brian Mazanec:] We do think there are four things that need to be done. First, we think the IC and DOD can do a better job to ensure clear roles and responsibilities for acquiring commercial satellite imagery. Second, we think the IC and DOD can develop a more effective approach to scale those emerging capabilities into operational support contracts in a timely manner. The third area we think improvement is needed is in identifying specific performance goals and measures towards maximizing the use of commercial satellite imagery. And finally, we think the IC and DOD can provide better guidance for the use of commercial analytic services that use remote sensing data. This will be, increasingly important as artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities progress and offer a more promising enhanced analytics for the pixels or information that commercial or government satellites collect. [Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Brian Mazanec:] Our bottom line is that commercial satellite capabilities are increasingly going to be indispensable to the national security enterprise. DOD and the IC continue to employ a fragmented, slow, and cumbersome approach to incorporating commercial capabilities into intelligence and defense operations and activities. And this can work for some time. But as the House of Stark likes to say, winter is coming, and if it continues to employ this approach, it risks losing ground to emerging competitors in the space, especially the Chinese Communist Party. China has laid out really ambitious plans to be the dominant space power by 2045, if not sooner. And we really believe if DOD in the IC can develop an effective approach to incorporate and sustain emerging commercial satellite capabilities in a timely manner, the national security enterprise will be better positioned to maintain and grow its technological advantage in space. [Holly Hobbs:] That was Brian Mazanec talking about GAO's new report on commercial satellite images and national security. Thanks for your time, Brian. [Brian Mazanec:] Thank you, Holly. [Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the watchdog report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen and make sure to leave a rating and review to let others know about the work we're doing. For more from the congressional watchdog, the US Government Accountability Office, visit us at GAO.gov.